Ten Questions Trump's CIA Director Nominee Should Answer

There was a sharp intake of breath from those of us who litigated civil rights last year, when Gina Haspel, one of the key players in America’s post-9/11 torture drama, was made the CIA’s Deputy Director. Now she’s been tapped to lead the entire agency.

In 2002 Haspel presided over a CIA black site in Thailand where, prior to her arrival,  prisoner, Abu Zubaydah, had waterboarded 83 times in a month. Zubaydah’s torture was so severe that at one point he appeared to die on the waterboarding table: he became “completely unresponsive, with bubbles rising through his full, open mouth” and had to be resuscitated. Haspel apparently ran the black site when at least one other detainee, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, was waterboarded*.

These sessions were taped. The tapes would have been clear evidence of criminal conduct by U.S. officials, had they survived. But the then-Director of Operations, José Rodriguez, sent orders to destroy them. The officer