Introduction
Gina Cheri Haspel (née Walker; born October 1, 1956) is an American intelligence officer serving as the Acting Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) since April 26, 2018, while holding the official title of Deputy Director.
She became Acting Director following her predecessor Mike Pompeo's resignation to become United States Secretary of State. Haspel has been nominated by President Donald Trump to become the permanent CIA Director. If confirmed by the Senate, she will be the first female CIA Director having already been the second female CIA Deputy Director.
Haspel has attracted controversy for her role as chief of a CIA black site in Thailand in 2002 in which prisoners were tortured.
Early life
Haspel was born Gina Cheri Walker in 1956 in Ashland, Kentucky. Her father served in the United States Air Force. She has four siblings.
Haspel attended high school in the United Kingdom. She was a student at the University of Kentucky for three years and transferred for her senior year to the University of Louisville, where she graduated in May 1978 with a BA degree in languages and journalism. From 1980-1981, she worked as a civilian library coordinator at Fort Devens in Massachusetts.
Career
Early CIA career
Haspel joined the CIA in January 1985 as a reports officer. She held several undercover overseas positions, for many of which she was station chief. Her first field assignment was from 1987-1989 in Ethiopia, Central Eurasia, Turkey, followed by several assignments in Europe and Central Eurasia from 1990-2001.
From 2001-2003, her position was listed as Deputy Group Chief, Counterterrorism Center.
Between October and December 2002, Haspel was assigned to oversee a secret CIA prison in Thailand, code-named Cat's Eye, that housed persons suspected of involvement in Al-Qaeda. The prison was part of the U.S. government's extraordinary rendition program after the September 11 attacks, and used enhanced interrogation techniques such as waterboarding that are considered by many to be torture although those methods were deemed legal at the time by agency lawyers. According to a former senior CIA official, Haspel arrived as station chief after the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah but was chief during the waterboarding of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri.
From 2004-2005, Haspel was Deputy Chief of the National Resources Division.
After the service in Thailand, she served as an operations officer in Counterterrorism Center near Washington, D.C. She later served as the CIA's station chief in London and, in 2011, New York.
National Clandestine Service leadership
Haspel served as the Deputy Director of the National Clandestine Service, Deputy Director of the National Clandestine Service for Foreign Intelligence and Covert Action, and Chief of Staff for the Director of the National Clandestine Service.
In 2005, Haspel was the chief of staff to Jose Rodriguez, Director of the National Clandestine Service. In his memoir, Rodriguez wrote that Haspel had drafted a cable in 2005 ordering the destruction of dozens of videotapes made at the black site in Thailand in response to mounting public scrutiny of the program.
In 2013, John Brennan, then the director of Central Intelligence, named Haspel as acting Director of the National Clandestine Service, which carries out covert operations around the globe. However, she was not appointed to the position permanently due to criticism about her involvement in the Rendition, Detention and Interrogation program. Her permanent appointment was opposed by Dianne Feinstein and others in the Senate.
Deputy Director of the CIA
On February 2, 2017, President Donald Trump appointed Haspel Deputy Director of the CIA, a position that does not require Senate confirmation. In an official statement released that day, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA) said:
With more than thirty years of service to the CIA and extensive overseas experience, Gina has worked closely with the House Intelligence Committee and has impressed us with her dedication, forthrightness, and her deep commitment to the Intelligence Community. She is undoubtedly the right person for the job, and the Committee looks forward to working with her in the future.
On February 8, 2017, several members of the Senate intelligence committee urged Trump to reconsider his appointment of Haspel as Deputy Director. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) quoted colleagues Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Martin Heinrich (D-NM) who were on the committee:
I am especially concerned by reports that this individual was involved in the unauthorized destruction of CIA interrogation videotapes, which documented the CIA's use of torture against two CIA detainees. My colleagues Senators Wyden and Heinrich have stated that classified information details why the newly appointed Deputy Director is 'unsuitable' for the position and have requested that this information be declassified. I join their request.
On February 15, 2017, Spencer Ackerman reported on psychologists Bruce Jessen and James Mitchell, the architects of the enhanced interrogation program that was designed to break Zubaydah and was subsequently used on other detainees at the CIA's secret prisons around the world. Jessen and Mitchell are being sued by Sulaiman Abdulla Salim, Mohamed Ahmed Ben Soud, and Obaid Ullah over torture designed by the psychologists. Jessen and Mitchell are seeking to compel Haspel, and her colleague James Cotsana, to testify on their behalf.
Nomination as Director
On March 13, 2018, President Donald Trump announced he would nominate Haspel to be the CIA director, replacing Mike Pompeo—whom he tapped to become the new Secretary of State. Should Haspel be confirmed by the Senate, she would become the first woman to serve as permanent CIA director (Meroe Park served as Executive Director from 2013-2017 and acting director for three days in January 2017). Robert Baer, who supervised Haspel at the Central Intelligence Agency, found her to be "smart, tough and effective. Foreign liaison services who have worked with her uniformly walked away impressed."
Republican Senator Rand Paul stated that he would oppose the nomination saying "To really appoint the head cheerleader for waterboarding to be head of the CIA? I mean, how could you trust somebody who did that to be in charge of the CIA? To read of her glee during the waterboarding is just absolutely appalling." Soon after Paul made this statement, the allegation that Haspel mocked those being interrogated was retracted. Doug Stafford, an aide for Rand Paul, said, "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."
Republican Senator and former presidential candidate John McCain called on Haspel to provide a detailed account of her participation in the CIA's detention program from 2001-2009, including whether she directed the use of so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques" and to clarify her role in the 2005 destruction of interrogation videotapes. McCain has been a staunch opponent of torture in the Senate, having been tortured as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam. McCain further called upon Haspel to commit to declassifying the 2014 Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture.
Multiple senators have criticized the CIA for what they believe is selectivity in declassifying superficial and positive information about her career to generate positive coverage, while simultaneously refusing to declassify any "meaningful" information about her career.
Confirmation hearing
On May 9, 2018, Haspel appeared before the Senate Intelligence Committee for a confirmation hearing.
Torture and destruction of evidence controversy
Haspel has been criticized for using torture during her career at the CIA, and for involvement in destroying records of such torture.
In late October 2002, Haspel became a chief of base for a "black site" CIA torture prison located in Thailand. She worked at a site that was codenamed "Cat's Eye", which would later become known as the place where suspected al Qaeda terrorist members Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri and Abu Zubaydah were detained and tortured with waterboarding. In early February 2017, The New York Times and ProPublica reported that these waterboardings were both conducted under Haspel. In March 2018, U.S. officials said that Haspel was not involved in the torture of Zubaydah, as she only became chief of base after Zubaydah was tortured. ProPublica and The New York Times issued corrections to their stories but noted that Haspel was involved in the torture of al-Nashiri. Haspel played a role in the destruction of 92 interrogation videotapes that showed the torture of detainees both at the black site she ran and other secret agency locations.
On December 17, 2014, the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) pressed criminal charges against unidentified CIA operatives, after the US Senate Select Committee published its report on torture by US intelligence agencies. On June 7, 2017, the ECCHR called on the Public Prosecutor General of Germany to issue an arrest warrant against Haspel over claims she oversaw the torture of terrorism suspects. The accusation against her is centered on the case of Saudi national Abu Zubaydah. Jameel Jaffer of the American Civil Liberties Union described Haspel as "quite literally a war criminal."
On May 1, 2018, Spencer Ackerman, writing in The Daily Beast, reported that former CIA analyst Gail Helt had been told that some of the controversial torture recordings had not been destroyed, after all. On May 9, 2018, the day prior to her confirmation vote, The New York Times reportedthat Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, architect of the 9/11 attacks and victim of various forms of torture, requested to submit six paragraphs of information for the Senate committee to review before its vote. The contents of these paragraphs, and whether they implicate Haspel directly in Mohammed's torture, are still not publicly known.
Awards and recognition
Haspel has received a number of awards, including the George H. W. Bush Award for excellence in counterterrorism, the Donovan Award, the Intelligence Medal of Merit, and the Presidential Rank Award.
Personal life
Haspel married Jeff Haspel, who served in the United States Army, circa 1976; they were divorced by 1985. Haspel currently lives in Ashburn, Virginia. She does not use social media. Haspel is unmarried and has no children.