The Trump administration has been faced with an enormous number of staffing problems since it came to power. Essentially matching the president’s own volatile temperament, senior staff turnover in the administration has proven remarkably high both in its first year and in what’s so far elapsed of its second year.
The now former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is among those in the administration to have lost their job this year. He’s since been replaced by Mike Pompeo, who had been serving as the Trump administration’s CIA director. His old job remains vacant at this time; the president nominated Gina Haspel, who had been serving as the deputy director of the CIA, to fill it.
Now, The Washington Post is reporting that according to anonymous administration officials, drama unfolded last week behind the scenes over Haspel’s nomination. According to the publication, she on Friday was leaning towards withdrawing her name from consideration, and it was not until the next day that White House officials had confirmation she were going to stick with it.
The spark driving Haspel towards withdrawing was scrutiny over her past involvement with the CIA’s torture program. She led a secret CIA prison in Thailand back in 2002 while a prisoner associated with Al Qaeda was waterboarded, and although the tide of American politics has shifted firmly against such practices since the time immediately following the 9/11 terror attacks, Haspel is still working in government. Outside of her leadership of that prison, she also wrote up an order that was eventually sent out by her boss to field officers directing the destruction of torture interrogation tapes.
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It was in the context of a Friday meeting between Haspel and the White House covering concerns about her background that she first let on that she was interested in withdrawing. She cited protection of the reputations of both the CIA and herself as underlying her decision making process, according to The Post.
After Haspel revealed her inclination towards withdrawing, a group of administration officials, including press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and legislative affairs director Marc Short, followed up their D.C. meeting with a meeting at CIA headquarters that lasted for hours. Trump administration officials, in seeking to have Haspel stay on, were following the lead of the president himself, who after an initial period of indecision said behind the scenes that he wanted Haspel to stay on.
Were she to have decided to exit the nomination process prematurely ahead of a Wednesday hearing, she would not have been the only Trump nominee to recently take such a route. The president’s pick to head the Department of Veterans Affairs after David Shulkin left — Dr. Ronny Jackson — withdrew from consideration after harsh concerns were raised about his conduct on the job as White House physician.
According to one official speaking to The Post, Haspel specifically cited the failed VA Secretary nominee in defense of the option of withdrawing, saying that she wanted to avoid becoming “the next Ronny Jackson.”
Whether or not she will be able to withstand attacks from members of Congress and move forward to confirmation in her upcoming hearings remains to be seen. For now, though, the White House is standing by her — and White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders doesn’t seem willing to grant any legitimacy at all to opposition.
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