UPDATE - US: Gina Haspel confirmed to lead CIA

ADDS DETAILS THROUGHOUT

By Michael Hernandez

WASHINGTON (AA) - President Donald Trump's pick to lead the CIA was confirmed Thursday to take the post despite concerns about her history with the agency's now defunct enhanced interrogation program, which has been roundly criticized as torture.

The 54-45 vote clears the way for Gina Haspel to become the agency's first female director, a landmark achievement for women after a Senate committee recommended she take the position Wednesday.

Haspel's confirmation has been contentious, given her role in supervising a CIA black site in Thailand where prisoners were tortured as well as concerns over her role in the destruction of videotaped recordings of brutal CIA interrogations.

During her confirmation hearing before the Senate intelligence committee last week, Haspel was grilled by Democrats over her record and repeatedly asked if she thought torture was immoral. She did not say it is.

Senator John McCain, a Republican who was a victim of torture during the Vietnam War, urged his colleagues to reject her nomination shortly after the hearing concluded, calling her refusal to say torture is immoral "disqualifying".

McCain did not take part in Thursday's vote because he is in his home state of Arizona battling brain cancer, but the Senate easily approved Haspel's nomination with a half-dozen Democrats and all present Republicans except Senators Rand Paul and Jeff Flake backing her nomination.

The CIA, where Haspel had been serving as acting director following former CIA Director Mike Pompeo's shift to the State Department, had launched an unprecedented campaign to ensure Haspel received confirmation. Critics have charged that the information released by the spy agency was selectively chosen to depict her in an approving light.

"While the American people have been told that Gina Haspel likes Johnny Cash and talked to Mother Teresa, Ms. Haspel has been exercising the unprecedented power to personally censor any facts that might get in the way of her confirmation,” Democratic Senator Ron Wyden said on the Senate floor shortly before the vote.

"There is much more that the full Senate and the public should know, and I am convinced that, if they did, her nomination would be rejected. Unfortunately, Ms. Haspel and the CIA have conducted an unprecedented and entirely self-serving cover-up, and the U.S. Senate has been a willing partner," he added.

But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell lauded the career spymaster, saying Haspel's "talent and expertise make her uniquely qualified to face America’s biggest national security challenges".