Trump appoints Gina Haspel as CIA director amid claims of secret prison operations

lARCH 14„ 2010 )RK TIMES ill pub- cts on ad 77LLERSON OUSTED AS TRUMP SILENCES DISSENT IN CABINET Pick for CLA. Chief Ran Secret Prison By ADAM GOLDMAN WASHINGTON — Just over a year after the Sept. 11 attacks, the C.I.A. dispatched the veteran clandestine officer Gina Haspel to oversee a secret prison in Thai- land. Shortly after, agency con- tractors in the frantic hunt for the conspirators waterhoarded a Qaeda suspect three times and subjected him to brutal interroga- tion techniques. Ms. Haspel's time running the prison, code-named Cat's Eye, be- gan her deep involvement in the agency's counterterrorism opera- tions and showed her willingness to take part in the agency's rendi- tion, detention and interrogation program, which shaped her ca- reer. She was a rising star until that dark chapter in C.I.A. history began to emerge publicly. But under President Trump, her fortunes changed, and on Tuesday, he announced that he intended to name her direc- tor of the C.I.A. With his ele- vation of Ms. Haspelo now Pornpeo Is Chosen to Lead State Dept. This article is by Mark Lanclier. Maggie Haberman and Gardiner Harris. WASHINGTON — President Trump ousted his secretary ot state, Rex W. Tillerson, on Tues- day, the most dramatic in a cas- cade of personnel moves that sug- gest Mr. Trump is determined to surround himself with loyalists more willing to reflect his "Amer- ica First" views. Mr. Trump announced he would replace Mr. Tillerson with Mike Pompeo, the C.I.A. director and former Tea Party congressman, who has cultivated a close rela- tionship with the president and has taken a harder line than Mr. Tillerson on critical issues like Iran and North Korea. Mr. Tillerson's dismissal, on the heels of Gary D. Cohn's resigna- tion as Mr. Trump's chief eco- nomic adviser after a dispute ovel steel tariffs, pulls the Trump acl ministration further out of the eel nomic and foreign policy mai stream and closer to the nation ist ideas that animated Trump's 2016 presidential c paign. It also suggests that after a of chaotic on-the-iob traininl Muss Goio. lot ei ra Arvtini nnati YritArP