Tag Archives: Gina Haspel

Bloody Gina and Her Team of Torturers, by Andrew P. Napolitano

One of the hardest thing for normal people to accept is that there are a lot of people in government who like to kill people. Like Gina Haspel. From Andrew P. Napolitano at lewrockwell.com:

Last week, at a pretrial hearing at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba for Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a Saudi who is charged with being the mastermind of an attack on the USS Cole in 2000 at which 17 American sailors were killed, the psychologist in charge of interrogating Nashiri described in vivid detail both the modern and the medieval techniques of torture used upon him.

The psychologist was called as a defense witness in order to demonstrate to the court that a good deal of the evidence that prosecutors plan to introduce against Nashiri was obtained directly or indirectly through, or was tainted by, his torture and thus cannot lawfully be used at his trial.

Torture committed by government officials and their collaborators upon a person restrained by the government is a felony punishable by up to 20 years in a federal prison, and its fruits are inadmissible in all courts. For many years, the CIA documented torture through video tapes of its disguised agents and contractors torturing its captives so it would have a record of the events without the need for revealing a participant’s identity.

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Trump To ‘Immediately Fire’ FBI, CIA Directors If Reelected, by Tyler Durden

Firing Wray and Haspel would be a good start to Trump’s second term. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:

President Trump will ‘immediately’ move to fire FBI Director Christopher Christopher Wray and CIA Director Gina Haspel, along with Defense Secretary Mark Esper, according to Axios – which spoke to “people who’ve discussed these officials’ fates with the president.”

And while the list of pink slips is allegedly much longer, Trump’s top priority is getting rid of Wray – whose FBI sat on alleged evidence of Biden corruption in Ukraine contained on Hunter Biden’s laptop (along with alleged child porn), while Trump was impeached for asking the Ukrainians to investigate exactly that.

According to Axios:

  • Wray and Haspel are despised and distrusted almost universally in Trump’s inner circle. He would have fired both already, one official said, if not for the political headaches of acting before Nov. 3.

Recall that Haspel served as station chief for the CIA’s London branch, and was – in Senator Rand Paul’s words, “a close acolyte of John Brennan” (who, as CIA chief, couldn’t legally spy on Americans on domestic soil). And what took place in London? For starters, the FBI’s spy operation spy operation on Trump campaign aides conducted by US intelligence operative Stephan Halper. Most notably, the UK-based Cambridge professor (and longtime US intelligence asset whose father-in-law was former director of the CIA, and who allegedly spied on the Carter administration), lured Trump aide George Papadopoulos into an espionage operation aimed at the Trump campaign – predicated on ‘Russian dirt’ rumors allegedly fed to him by a Clinton ally, Joseph Mifsud.

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Intel Sources: CIA Director Gina Haspel Banking On Trump Loss To Keep Russiagate Documents Hidden, by Sean Davis

It looks like Haspel stalling the clock isn’t going to work. From Sean Davis at thefederalist.com:

Haspel is hoping Trump loses his re-election bid so she can run out the clock on Russiagate document declassifications, multiple intelligence community officials told The Federalist.

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director Gina Haspel is personally blocking the declassification and release of key Russiagate documents in the hopes that President Donald Trump will lose his re-election bid, multiple senior U.S. officials told The Federalist. The officials said Haspel, who served under former CIA Director John Brennan as the spy agency’s station chief in London in 2016 and 2017, is concerned that the declassification and release of documents detailing what the CIA was doing during the 2016 election and the 2017 transition could embarrass the CIA and potentially even implicate Haspel herself.

“Haspel and [FBI Director Christopher] Wray both want Trump to lose, because it’s the only chance they have of keeping their jobs,” one senior intelligence official told The Federalist. “They’re banking on Biden winning and keeping them where they are.”

The Federalist first reported last week that Haspel had emerged as the primary roadblock to declassification of materials showing that the U.S. intelligence community knew prior to the 2016 election that the allegations that Trump colluded with Russia were themselves the products of Russian disinformation. Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe released a declassified summary last week that disclosed that Russian intelligence officials were aware that former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton had planned to smear Trump as a treasonous Russian asset to distract from the Clinton’s e-mail scandal. As part of her operation, Clinton hired a foreign agent who was himself working for a sanctioned Russian oligarch to spread unverified smears against Trump. One of the key sources of collusion allegations peddled by that foreign agent via the now-infamous Steele dossier was suspected by FBI authorities of being a Russian spy.
 

 

CIA Director Gina Haspel and the British Role in the Anti-Trump Plot, by Chris Farrell

It looks like Gina Haspel has got something to hide about her role in the Russiagate coup. From Chris Farrell at gatestoneinstitute.com:

  • In the next paragraph, [Washington Post reporter Shane] Harris notes breathlessly: “… Trump has accused the United Kingdom of conspiring with American intelligence to spy on his presidential campaign.”
  • President Trump certainly has made that claim, and one believes for very good reasons that seem to compound weekly.
  • Having the British run an aggressive intelligence collection operation against Team Trump targets, bypassing US legal prohibitions, and then laundering the intelligence “take” back to US officials via the UK-US liaison relationship is precisely something an “honorary UK desk officer” might be good and adept at accomplishing. Certainly, these subjects and questions deserve closer examination, without the phony prophylactic defense of grave warnings about “sources and methods.”
  • CIA Director Gina Haspel can answer all of those questions, and she does not even have to touch upon classified information to do so. The American public is due her answers.
It appears CIA Director Gina Haspel (while serving as London Chief of Station from 2014 to early 2017) was an active, knowledgeable party to the efforts to target candidate Trump with an FBI-instigated foreign counterintelligence operation. Pictured: Haspel is sworn in before the Senate Intelligence Committee during her confirmation hearing to become the CIA director, on May 9, 2018 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

We have raised and discussed serious matters of fact and questions about the role of CIA Director Gina Haspel in the Anti-Trump conspiracy. It appears Haspel (while serving as London Chief of Station from 2014 to early 2017) was an active, knowledgeable party to the efforts to target candidate Trump with an FBI-instigated foreign counterintelligence operation. That seditious conspiracy carried forward to a more sophisticated and aggressive plan to carry out a soft coup against President Donald J. Trump.

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CIA Director Haspel and the Anti-Trump Conspirators, by Chris Farrell

Swamp creatures don’t get any swampier than Gina Haspel. From Chris Farrell at gatestoneinstitute.org:

  • What is most interesting is the timing of Gina Haspel’s last tour as London Station Chief — from 2014 to early 2017. That is the same timeframe (specifically, the late summer of 2016) when the FBI approached foreign policy academic and “utility government operative” Stefan Halper to begin the operation targeting Carter Page and George Papadopoulos in an FBI-designed foreign counterintelligence operation, against Team Trump, to be launched in Cambridge, England.
  • The CIA Station Chief is the top intelligence official in any given country. The FBI must inform the Station Chief of what they planned to do and get Station Chief approval. The FBI hates that, but those are the rules. Because the various intelligence agencies are sensitive, they do not use the word “approved.” Instead, they use the word “coordinated.” Jargon aside, nothing would have happened without Haspel’s okay.
  • That carried forward to a more sophisticated and aggressive plan to carry out a soft coup against President Trump. People around President Trump were prosecuted and/or had their lives destroyed based on a scheme of U.S. government lies. Who appears to have been “in on it” from Day One? Gina Haspel.
  • The FBI is not allowed to penetrate and subvert a presidential campaign. Executive Order 12333, Section 2.9, “Undisclosed Participation in Organizations in the United States,” prohibits it in plain language… That legal prohibition is the reason the FBI felt the need to manufacture a “foreign counterintelligence threat” in the UK and then “import” the investigation back into the United States.
Pictured: CIA Director Gina Haspel (center) arrives at the U.S. Capitol on January 8, 2020 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Gina Haspel is the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Haspel is the first career clandestine service officer to become director, and the first woman. She was the CIA Chief of Station in London — twice, and that repeat assignment is very unusual. What is most interesting is the timing of Haspel’s last tour as London Station Chief — from 2014 to early 2017. That is the same timeframe (specifically, the late summer of 2016) when the FBI approached foreign policy academic and “utility government operative” Stefan Halper to begin the operation targeting Carter Page and George Papadopoulos in an FBI-designed foreign counterintelligence operation, against Team Trump, to be launched in Cambridge, England.

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CIA Director Haspel Personally Blocking Declassification Of Russiagate Documents, by

Why did President Trump appoint this swamp creature head of the CIA? From Ian Schwarz at realclearpolitics.com at zerohedge.com:

“Federalist” co-founder Sean Davis reports that CIA Director Gina Haspel is personally blocking the release of documents that will show “what actually happened” with Russiagate.

This isn’t just a scandal about Democrat projection, this is a scandal about what was a coup planned against the incoming administration at the highest levels and I can report here tonight that these declassifications that have come out,” Davis told FOX News host Tucker Carlson on Wednesday. “Those weren’t easy to get out and there are far more waiting to get out.”

“Unfortunately those releases and declassifications according to multiple sources I’ve talked to are being blocked by CIA director Gina Haspel who herself was the main link between Washington and London,” Davis said.

“As the London station chief from John Brennan’s CIA during the 2016 election. Recall, it was London where Christopher Steele was doing all this work. And I’m told that it was Gina Haspel personally who is blocking a continued declassification of these documents that will show the American people the truth of what actually happened.”

Watch:

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/cia-director-haspel-personally-blocking-declassification-russiagate-documents-sean-davis

WSJ Says CIA Chief Wouldn’t Do Anything ‘Inappropriate’—Despite Record of Torture and Coverup, by Joshua Cho

Sometimes you wonder if the Wall Street Journal doesn’t just take dictation from the CIA. From Joshua Cho at fair.org:

Depiction of Gina Haspel in Wall Street Journal

A Wall Street Journal report (5/25/19) by Warren Strobel whitewashed CIA Director Gina Haspel’s career and put a positive spin on the CIA’s insulation from public accountability with its turn towards its greatest opacity “in decades.”

While one might expect CIA officials to support greater secrecy around the organization, it’s odd that ostensibly independent journalists—with a mission to hold official organizations accountable by informing the public—would treat less information coming from the agency as a positive development.

WSJ: Under CIA Chief Gina Haspel, an Intelligence Service Returns to the Shadows

The Wall Street Journal (5/25/19) says “returns to the shadows” like that’s a good thing.

Yet that’s exactly what the Journal report did, depicting Haspel’s strategy of avoiding backlash from the Trump administration by not publicly contradicting its dubious claims as “protecting the agency” from “the domestic threat of a toxic US political culture.”

“She and her agency have adopted their lowest public profile in decades,” Strobel writes—just before summing her up as a “CIA director who has been warmly received by the workforce she has spent her life among.”

In other words, for the Journal, a public intelligence agency sharing its intelligence with the public is a bad thing, unless it supports US foreign policy by agreeing with whatever the Trump administration is saying. This position is echoed in the piece by official sources, like former CIA official and staff director of the House Intelligence Committee Mark Lowenthal, who assures us, “It’s not going to be any good for her [Haspel] to be out there attracting lightning bolts.”

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NYT Covers Up CIA Skripal Lie With Even Worse CIA Skripal Lie, by Tyler Durden

What a tangled web they weave, when intelligence agencies and their captive media practice to deceive. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:

The Duran’s Alex Christoforou and Editor-in-Chief Alexander Mercouris discuss the fact that the New York Times has corrected its CIA-Skripal story, saying that no ‘dead ducks’ or ‘sick kids’ in Salisbury due to the ‘Novichok’ nerve agent.

The New York Times corrected a report that stated UK officials shared photos with the CIA showing children and ducks who head been exposed to the Novichok nerve agent after coming into contact with the Skripals.

The NYT reported on April 16 that the British government had supplied images of “young children hospitalized” and of dead ducks, poisoned after interactions with Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia at a park in Salisbury in March of last year.

The NYT profile of CIA Director Gina Haspel had claimed the ‘dead duck’ images were used to convince US President Trump to expel 60 Russian diplomats from the US in response to the Skripal case. The New York Times now says no photos ever existed, and its report of such photos was inaccurate.

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Khashoggi, Erdogan, and the Truth, by Craig Murray

The Khashoggi murder is nothing new for Saudi Arabia. What’s new is that western governments and media are paying attention. From Craig Murray at antiwar.com:

The Turkish account of the murder of Khashoggi given by President Erdogan is true, in every detail. Audio and video evidence exists and has been widely shared with world intelligence agencies, including the US, UK, Russia and Germany, and others which have a relationship with Turkey or are seen as influential. That is why, despite their desperate desire to do so, no Western country has been able to maintain support for Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman. I have not seen the video from inside the consulate, but have been shown stills which may be from a video. The most important thing to say is that they are not from a fixed position camera and appear at first sight consistent with the idea they are taken by a device brought in by the victim. I was only shown them briefly. I have not heard the audio recording.

There are many things to learn from the gruesome murder other than the justified outrage at the event itself. It opens a window on the truly horrible world of the extremely powerful and wealthy.

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Senator Richard Burr: a Longtime Fan of Torture, by Ray McGovern

Why should Gina Haspel’s record running a torture site disqualify her from running the CIA? Torture is, after all, a CIA speciality. From Ray McGovern at consortiumnews.com:

Newly released declassified documents prove once and for all that CIA Director Gina Haspel oversaw torture in Thailand, which the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee knew all along, as Ray McGovern explains.

Newly released official documents obtained by the National Security Archive showing that CIA Director Gina Haspel directly supervised waterboarding at the first CIA “Black Site” simply confirm what Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Richard Burr (R-NC) already knew as he orchestrated the charade that was Haspel’s confirmation hearing.  Burr allowed her to “classify” her own direct role in waterboarding and other torture techniques so that it could be kept from the public and secure her confirmation—-further proof that this Senate oversight committee has instead become an overlook committee.

That Haspel supervised the torture of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri at the first CIA “black site” for interrogation was already clear to those who had followed Haspel’s career, but she was able to do a song and dance when Sen. Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA) asked her about it.  Haspel declined to reply on grounds that the information was classified. It was of course because Haspel herself had classified it. All the senators knew that only too well. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) had strongly objected to this bizarre practice only minutes before.

Witnessing this charade from the audience prompted me to stand up, excuse myself for interrupting, and suggest that the committee members were entitled to an honest answer since this was a public hearing with thousands watching on TV.  The American people were also entitled to know whether or not Haspel was directly involved in torture. As I was calmly pointing out that any Senate Intelligence Committee member who prepared for the hearing already knew the answer, I was “escorted out,” manhandled and charged with disrupting Congress and resisting arrest.

McGovern after he made a comment at Haspel’s confirmation hearing.

Jeremy Scahill later did a good job on Democracy Now! in putting needed context around the free pass and encouragement CIA torturers continue to enjoy at the hands of co-conspirators like Sen. Burr.

I have now had time to read through the documents obtained by the National Security Archive via Freedom of Information Act requests.  Suffice it to say they are so sad and sickening that I had to stop reading.

To continue reading: Senator Richard Burr: a Longtime Fan of Torture