The Senate confirmed Gina Haspel as the first woman to lead the CIA Thursday after weeks of bipartisan resistance from lawmakers concerned about her past participation in the agency’s enhanced interrogation program.
Haspel, the current deputy director, came under fire by Democrats and a select group of Republicans for her reputed support for the post-9/11 interrogation program, as well as her role in destroying video recordings depicting the interrogation of terror suspects in 2005.
Haspel vowed that the agency would not resume the now defunct program under watch during her confirmation hearing and later conceded that the program “should not have been undertaken” in a letter to Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee.