Gina Haspel's Lose-Lose Proposition for Democrats

Confirmation hearings aren’t supposed to be fun, exactly, but some turn out to be far more brutal than others. A dramatic showdown seems likely for President Donald Trump’s nominee to serve as CIA Director, Gina Haspel, who will face a grilling on Wednesday by skeptical Democrats wary of her record on torture and annoyed by the CIA’s reluctance to declassify central components of that record.

Haspel, a thirty-year agency veteran well-liked and respected by her colleagues at Langley, has been sharply criticized for the role she played in the CIA’s now-banned torture programs and the tape recordings of which she purportedly helped to destroy. Now, Democrats