Rand Paul Still a No on Haspel Despite Retracted Torture Report
“According to multiple published, undisputed accounts, she oversaw a black site and she further destroyed evidence of torture.”
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has decided to still oppose CIA Deputy Director Gina Haspel as director of the spy agency despite the fact ProPublica retracted a report that claimed she supervised and participated in torture in 2002.
From Politico:
But one of Paul’s top aides said on Friday that the Kentucky Republican will still oppose Haspel, a move that could tank her nomination in the closely divided Senate.
“Senator Rand Paul was quoting a Pulitzer-Prize winning reporter. Regardless of the retraction of one anecdote, the fact remains that Gina Haspel was instrumental in running a place where people were tortured. According to multiple published, undisputed accounts, she oversaw a black site and she further destroyed evidence of torture. This should preclude her from ever running the CIA,” said Doug Stafford, Paul’s chief strategist.
The original ProPublica report came out in February 2017 when Trump nominated Haspel as deputy director. Editor-in-chief Stephen Engelberg wrote yesterday:
On Feb. 22, 2017, ProPublica published a story that inaccurately described Gina Haspel’s role in the treatment of Abu Zubaydah, a suspected al-Qaida leader who was imprisoned by the CIA at a secret “black site” in Thailand in 2002.
The story said that Haspel, a career CIA officer who President Trump has nominated to be the next director of central intelligence, oversaw the clandestine base where Zubaydah was subjected to waterboarding and other coercive interrogation methods that are widely seen as torture. The story also said she mocked the prisoner’s suffering in a private conversation. Neither of these assertions is correct and we retract them. It is now clear that Haspel did not take charge of the base until after the interrogation of Zubaydah ended.
Engelberg acknowledged that the part of the report about her ordering the destruction of tapes from the prison. These tapes came out to the public in 2009 in a letter from federal prosecutors who investigated the destruction of said tapes:
The criminal investigation, begun in January 2008, is being led by John H. Durham, a career prosecutor from Connecticut with long experience trying organized-crime cases.
The order to destroy the tapes was given by Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., who at the time was the head of the spy agency’s clandestine service. Prosecutors have spent months trying to piece together whether anyone besides Mr. Rodriguez authorized the destruction and to decide whether anyone should be indicted in the matter.
The tapes were destroyed as Congress and the courts were intensifying their scrutiny of the agency’s detention and interrogation program.
The cables of those “destruction orders” had Haspel’s name on them.
The GOP has a one seat majority in the Senate and without Paul, Vice President Mike Pence can break the tie. If more join him (and assuming all Democrats vote no) she won’t receive confirmation. Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) has not decided how he will vote and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) remains absent due to cancer treatment.
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Comments
Senator Paul, you be-clowned yourself by falling for fake news, and now you double-down on it! Openly declare your love for McCain, flake and Maxine waters, or stfu.
Asshat
With Haspel on to bigger things, maybe Rand’s next door neighbor can take over running the black sites… 😮
Paul always comes across as so arrogant and superior, I have never liked him.
Paul yesterday: I oppose her because I am high minded!
Paul today: I oppose her because….LOOK!! Over there!
Another masked drops.
While he has times where I can agree with him, I find him odious most times. He is similar to McCain, in love with himself for playing the contrarian and “maverick”, with no regard for anything but getting kudos from the media, who will always hate him for the R by his name. He is not a stupid man, but he certainly has some stupid principles which are tough to figure out. I would have a hard time voting for him for any position.
Grandstand Paul’s only principle is “me first!”.
When will people learn. Do not look into the mirror when analyzing why politicians do what they do. Everything that a politician does is always, ALWAYS self serving. If you are lucky, his, or her, interests will coincide with yours. But, their positions are ALWAYS designed to benefit them, not necessarily their constituents.
I always find these federal investigations interesting. The feds have been investigation whether or not Haspel was instrumental in destroying tapes of interrogations overseas for 10 years. 10 YEARS. A freaking DECADE. WTF. Are the investigators total incompetents? Are they conducting this investigation in their spare time? Are they waiting for all the targets of the investigation to die? INCREDIBLE!
Her name is on the order authorizing the destruction of the tapes. They were not under subpoena, they were not legally required to be retained, and any intel info had already been collected from them, so the only reason to retain them would be to give terrorist groups recruitment fodder, and they have enough of that already. Much like the Bin Laden photos, destruction is the best option.
Therefore, they’re trying to find a crime where none exists so they can pontificate about it on TV and fundraise on it. I think she’ll make a good director, and since she’s the Deputy Director now, she will be doing the job while the Senate huffs and puffs.
So, in other words, the reporter neglected to mention that the case was closed due to a lack of criminal action. It was, in other words, unfounded. And, this little tidbit of fact was conveniently left out in order to further the reporter’s agenda.
Fake news?
And after 10 years, the zerobama regime could not find anything. How surprising!
With Rand it usually is all about Rand.
Seems to be a contradiction in integrity. Isn’t there a Roman aphorism regarding that? There’s something wrong that bothers me I can’t find the right words to express it.
His earlier position evoked a sense of righteousness at the expense of practicality. I think he’s a fool for shrugging off the ticking Time Bomb scenario, but I can relate to his stance -: it’s similar to “never hit a lady” even as she is knocking you into a coma with a frying pan.
But now that his position has been undermined… lookie lookie – those righteous objections apparently weren’t so all important as he initially indicated.
I dealt with this in the SCA, leadership refused to deal with a pedophile because they feared exposing him would destroy the organization. so they turned and attacked the Whistleblower instead. If you continue to pursue this Fen, people you care about will be hurt” (William of Storvik, father of two girls he will bury).
Just like at Penn State – they put so much time effort and energy into the football program that they protected it no matter what the cost.
Like Rand Paul they tried on excuses like overcoats until they found one they were comfortable in. And if 20 leaders have 20 different reasons why nothing can be done, none of those reasons are valid, they are dodges. And if you remove the reasons for one of their objections, they simply try on a new overcoat and give you the same Song & Dance.
I wonder what Truth Mr Righteous is dodging.
The Democrats seem able to vote as one block. They even have a Socialist (Sanders) and an Independent (King) who consistently vote with them and caucus with them.
Yet the Republicans have these bomb throwing Mavericks: McCain, Paul, Graham, Flake (who never misses and opportunity to bash Trump).
The Republicans will never have effective control of the Senate so long as this behavior is tolerated. All they will have are the Chairmanships of Committees and control over the agenda.
The nut doesn’t fall far from the tree.
Talk about a square peg looking for a round hole! This guy needs to look for another line of work. Compromise is the order of the day in Congress no matter the side you are on. That is how our country is divided and “My way or the highway” will never work.
…like father, like son. Rand Paul is,in his own way, just as nutty as his old man….
I can’t imagin McCain supporting anybody affiliated with torture.