Trump's Deputy CIA Director Could Face Court Deposition Over Post-9/11 Role in Torture

By Spencer Ackerman, Guardian UK

15 February 17

 

Attorneys for psychologists who helped design brutal interrogations seek deposition from Gina Haspel, newly appointed by Donald Trump

ven as the Trump administration attempts to contain an escalating crisis over its surreptitious ties to Russia, another spying crisis is threatening to haul the deputy CIA director into court to expose her role in post-9/11 torture.

In a court filing on Tuesday, attorneys for two CIA contract psychologists who helped design the agency’s brutal interrogations for terrorism suspects have asked a federal judge to order Gina Haspel, a career CIA officer recently appointed as the agency’s No2 official, to provide a deposition discussing her allegedly pivotal involvement in an episode the CIA has tried repeatedly to put behind it.

“Ms. Haspel was centrally involved in the events alleged in plaintiffs Sulaiman Abdulla Salim, Mohamed Ahmed Ben Soud, and Obaid Ullah, on behalf of Gul Rahman’s … suit against Defendants for actions they purportedly took while contractors for the CIA,” wrote Brian Paszamant, an attorney for ex-contractors Bruce Jessen and James Mitchell.

Salim, Ben Soud, Ullah and representatives for Rahman – who died in a CIA black site – filed a lawsuit in 2015 against Mitchell and Jessen for designing their torture regimens while in CIA custody. The Obama administration surprised many by not seeking to block the case under a veil of state secrecy.

Mitchell and Jessen contend that they ought not to be held liable for work they performed on behalf of the CIA. Salim, Ben Soud and Ullah, represented by the ACLU, argue that they have no other option for redress, as the government has declined to pursue criminal charges against architects of CIA torture.

The judge in the case, Justin Quackenbush, has already granted Mitchell and Jessen’s requests to depose other contemporary CIA officials, former clandestine service and Counterterrorism Center chief Jose Rodriguez and former chief attorney John Rizzo. Both are scheduled to deliver their depositions in March.

Haspel, formerly identified as “Gina Doe” in case filings, was Rodriguez’s deputy. She reportedly aided Rodriguez in destroying nearly 100 videotapes depicting torture of the first two black-site detainees, a fateful event that inadvertently sparked the Senate intelligence committee’s 2014 landmark investigation into the detentions and interrogations.

Her appointment by Donald Trump on 2 February came amid a feud between Trump and elements of the intelligence agencies that concluded Russia interfered in the 2016 election for Trump’s benefit. The sprawling fallout from that ongoing controversy prompted Trump’s national security adviser, Mike Flynn, who distrusts the CIA, to resign on Monday night as calls for a broader investigation intensified.

Harsh Trump critics within the CIA alumni network have praised Haspel’s appointment. Michael Morrell, a former acting director who publicly supported Hillary Clinton, called Haspel “widely respected” and “simply exceptional”.

But Senate intelligence committee Democrats and torture critics Ron Wyden and Martin Heinrich called Haspel “unsuitable for the position” by virtue of her background in a letter to Trump, including a vague allusion to her role in the torture program.

Trump has floated an executive order that would restore the CIA’s torture program, which is illegal, but opposition within the Pentagon and CIA has for now prevented its issuance.

According to the court papers, the Trump administration is resisting Haspel’s intended deposition, as well as one from a clandestine CIA official identified only as John Doe and said to be a former head of the agency’s Renditions Group.

“[O]nly yesterday, February 13 2017, did the Government finally inform Defendants that it will ‘not authorize’ these depositions,” Mitchell and Jessen’s attorneys said in the filing, prompting them to seek Quackenbush to compel her appearance in court.

Mitchell and Jessen argue that without Haspel’s deposition, they will be disadvantaged in arguing that their “actions/inactions were within the scope of legally and validly conferred authority”.

Quackenbush did not rule on Haspel’s deposition on Tuesday.