Gina Haspel Confirmation Hearing: CIA Nominee Faces Senators' Questions
Updated at 12:34 p.m. ET
"I would not allow CIA to undertake activity that I thought was immoral – even if it was technically legal," CIA nominee Gina Haspel said on Wednesday, replying to pointed questions about what her values and priorities would be as leader of America's intelligence agency.
Haspel is being questioned by both her critics and her backers, testifying under oath at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on her nomination to lead the Central Intelligence Agency.
Several senators pressed Haspel for details about her role in destroying tapes of CIA interrogations of a detainee — and whether she had been in favor of that step.
"I absolutely was an advocate" for destroying the tapes, Haspel said, if the act was found to be "conforming to U.S. law."
The nominee also said she had not played a role in creating the CIA's detention and interrogation program, and didn't know of its existence until about a year after it had been started.
Haspel, the first woman nominated as the director of the CIA, hopes to succeed Mike Pompeo, who left to lead the State Department. But she's also facing scrutiny over her role in the
