Trump's Pick for New CIA Director Is Career Spymaster (bloomberg.com)

An anonymous reader shares a AP report: President Donald Trump's choice to be the first female director of the CIA is a career spymaster who once ran an agency prison in Thailand where terror suspects were subjected to a harsh interrogation technique that the president has supported. Trump tweeted Tuesday that CIA Director Mike Pompeo will replace Rex Tillerson as secretary of state and that he has selected Gina Haspel to replace Pompeo. Haspel, the current deputy CIA director, also helped carry out an order that the agency destroy its waterboarding videos. That order prompted a lengthy Justice Department investigation that ended without charges. Haspel, who has extensive overseas experience, briefly ran a secret CIA prison where accused terrorists Abu Zubayadah and Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri were waterboarded in 2002, according to current and former U.S. intelligence officials, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

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Intelligence chief Clapper gets off scot-free

[DNS-and-BIND]

It's been five years since former US spy chief James Clapper lied to Congress about the NSA's giant surveillance program, and the statute of limitations for his crime is coming to end, guaranteeing him a peaceful retirement.

On March 12, 2013, Clapper, then director of national intelligence, knowingly lied to the US Select Committee on Intelligence, when he was asked by Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) whether the National Security Agency collected "any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans."

"No sir. Not willingly," Clapper said.

The full extent of Clapper's unabashed dishonesty was revealed to the world just three months later, when NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden leaked troves of documents to Wikileaks detailing the agencyâ(TM)s vast, warrantless surveillance of American citizens.

In 2009, professional baseball player Miguel Tejada pleaded guilty to lying to Congress after giving false testimony about performance-enhancing drug use in Major League Baseball.

"He admitted to lying to Congress and was unremorseful and flippant about it," Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) told the Washington Examiner. "The integrity of our federal government is at stake because his behavior sets the standard for the entire intelligence community." Massie was referring to Clapper, not the baseball player. Just to be clear.

In other news, an unprecedented number of former CIA agents are running for office in 2018 as Democrats. Once in the CIA, always in the CIA. They will always represent the Agency's interests, no matter what walk of life they progress to. Get out there and vote, people. Bring a couple of friends to vote. It's the only way we'll get our country back.