President Trump Picks Gina Haspel as First Female CIA Director

President Trump has picked career CIA agent Gina Haspel as the new director of the Central Intelligence Agency, after appointing the former director as Secretary of State.

CIA director Mike Pompeo has just been moved into the position of Secretary of State, since President Trump fired Rex Tillerson from the same position. The move shocked everyone, not least of all because it seemed at first to have taken place entirely on Twitter.

"Mike Pompeo, Director of the CIA, will become our new Secretary of State," the President tweeted just before 6 a.m. on Tuesday. "He will do a fantastic job! Thank you to Rex Tillerson for his service! Gina Haspel will become the new Director of the CIA, and the first woman so chosen. Congratulations to all!"

Mike Pompeo, Director of the CIA, will become our new Secretary of State. He will do a fantastic job! Thank you to Rex Tillerson for his service! Gina Haspel will become the new Director of the CIA, and the first woman so chosen. Congratulations to all!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 13, 2018

Haspel still needs to be approved by the Senate in order to assume the position, which may not be as easy as gaining the president's approval. Haspel has a dark past with the agency, stretching back to her management of a CIA "black site" prison.

The worldwide network of secret prisons were launched following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, according to a report by CNBC. They have since been condemned by human rights groups around the world for their harsh treatment of prisoners held without without charges. The black sites are where the CIA reportedly used "enhanced interrogation" techniques, which mostly amounted to torture.

Haspel ran a black site prison in Thailand in 2002, where terrorist suspect Abu Zubaydah was held after his capture in Pakistan. He was reportedly waterboarded 83 times, locked in a coffin, deprived of sleep and slammed against the wall, according to a congressional report on the program. After months of torture, the CIA realized that Zubaydah was actually not an al-Qaeda leader, as they suspected. However, he remains a prisoner in the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Haspel worked as chief of staff to the CIA director of clandestine operations, Jose Rodriguez, from 2003 to 2005. Rodriguez mentioned Haspel in his memoir in 2013, remembering how she had directed agents to use an industrial strength shredder to destroy video evidence of CIA interrogations at black sites.

President Trump named Haspel the deputy director of the CIA in February of 2017. Since then, Democratic senators have written letters protesting her appointment to that office, let alone the office of director itself. Senators Wyden and Heinrich wrote that Haspel's "background makes her unsuitable for the position," though their exact reasoning remains classified.

Haspel released a statement on the president's selection, saying that if she is confirmed she looks forward to "providing President Trump the outstanding intelligence support he has grown to expect during his first year in office."