Trump's Grotesque Choice of a Grotesque Human to Run the CIA

He chooses someone who hates the environment to run the EPA. He chooses someone who hates public schools to run the Department of Education, and someone who hates the poor and is against public housing to head Housing and Urban Development. Now to run the CIA? Someone who believes in torture and has the record to prove it.

New CIA chief was the head of a major torture black site.

Gina Haspel might just have won the trifecta: She directed a torture program, directed its coverup, and now, as her reward, gets to run the whole CIA. Bad mujer for the win.

As Miller put it, she was “directly involved in its controversial interrogation program” and had an “extensive role” in torturing detainees. Even more troubling, she “had run a secret prison in Thailand” — part of the CIA’s network of “black sites” — “where two detainees were subjected to waterboarding and other harsh techniques.” The Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on torture also detailed the central role she played in the particularly gruesome torture of detainee Abu Zubaydah.

Beyond all that, she played a vital role in the destruction of interrogation videotapes that showed the torture of detainees both at the black site she ran and other secret agency locations. The concealment of those interrogation tapes, which violated multiple court orders as well as the demands of the 9/11 commission and the advice of White House lawyers, was condemned as “obstruction” by commission chairs Lee Hamilton and Thomas Keane. A special prosecutor and grand jury investigated those actions but ultimately chose not to prosecute.

The name of that CIA official whose torture activities the Post described is Gina Haspel. Today, as BuzzFeed’s Jason Leopold noted, CIA Director Mike Pompeo announced that Haspel was selected by Trump to be deputy director of the CIA.

This should not come as much of a surprise given that Pompeo himself has said he is open to resurrecting Bush-era torture techniques...

Fucking unbelievable, unless of course you've been following Donald Trump's appointments. He has only one question.

"Are they horrible?"

"Yes, Mr. President."

Great! They're in."