emptywheel

"It was CIA who identified and captured Osama bin Laden." SEAL propagandists go nuts!

Haspel answers a different question than Warner asked: whether CIA will restart torture, not whether it was wrong.

"In retrospect it is clear CIA not prepared to conduct detention program." LOLOLOL. Rather than saying it is not legal to torture, she says it is not legal to use techniques not in AFM. VERY curious phrasing.

"CIA cannot be effective w/o people's trust." Hailing Congressional oversight process. Note, in her description of torture she didn't address destroying a video that Congress had asked for.

Gonna interject here: the moment to establish that we can't have torturers lead CIA was actually Brennan, not Haspel. Dems failed that test.

Burr: I would remind members that we are in an open session. Did Burr actually give Wyden the side eye when he asked that?

Burr pitches the video destruction as entirely Rodriguez' decision. "The tape issue had lingered at CIA for a period of about 3 years. A great deal of concern about security risk to CIA officers depicted on tapes."

Haspel: Rodriguez has made it very clear that he and he alone made the decision. I did not appear on those tapes as has been alleged.