Coalition Urges Senate to Release Torture Records Before Advancing CIA Director Nomination

WASHINGTON — In a letter sent to the Senate today, the American Civil Liberties Union and 28 organizations asked senators not to move on the nomination of Gina Haspel for director of the CIA until all records on her past involvement in the CIA torture program are declassified and released to the public.

Haspel was a central figure in the torture program and the destruction of the evidence of torture. She was named deputy director of the CIA in 2017, despite the objections of senators who urged President Trump to reconsider her nomination in light of her past connection to torture.

“The Senate’s constitutional obligation to ‘advise and consent’ on any nomination requires that it have full access to relevant information on the nominees before it,” the letter says. “In Ms. Haspel’s case, the precise details of her role in the torture program remain classified. All senators should demand that those records be declassified and made public — before her nomination moves any further — so that they can actually discuss Ms. Haspel’s deeply disturbing background in open session, and so that the public can glean a more detailed picture of her role in one of the darkest chapters in U.S. history.”

The letter is available online here:
https://www.aclu.org/letter/coalition-letter-calling-declassification-cia-documents-haspel