President Donald Trump's pick to lead the CIA admitted in a new letter that the agency should not have used torture on terror suspects in the years after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
CNN obtained a copy of a letter Gina Haspel sent to Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., in which she clarified her position on the CIA's enhanced interrogation program.
"Over the last 17 years, the Agency and I have learned the hard lessons since 9/11," Haspel wrote. "While I won't condemn those that made these hard calls, and I have noted the valuable intelligence collected, the program ultimately did damage to our officers and our standing in the world.
"With the benefit of hindsight and my experience as a senior Agency leader, the enhanced interrogation program is not one the CIA should have undertaken. The United States must be an example to the rest of the world, and I support that."
Haspel was grilled during her Senate confirmation hearing last week, with lawmakers asking her to reveal her personal feelings on the use of torture. The CIA used waterboarding and other enhanced interrogation techniques on captured terror suspects in secret sites around the world in the early and mid-2000s.
In her letter to Warner, who serves as the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Haspel also expressed regret for the CIA's decision not to fully brief the committee about the torture program when it was in use.
"As I stated to the Committee, it was a mistake not to brief the entire Committee at the beginning," she wrote. "Both the Committee and the Agency shared the goal of obtaining the critical intelligence needed to thwart another attack."
Haspel's confirmation is not guaranteed because she still faces pushback due to her history of leading a CIA black site that conducted torture.
© 2026 Newsmax. All rights reserved.