Surveillance perjurer gets off, CIA torture criminal gets promoted [updated]

Update: Some of the claims in this post concerning CIA Director-designate Gina Haspel are hereby retracted. More below.

James Clapper

Almost five years ago, then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told Congress that the NSA didn’t spy on Americans. This lie was so baldfaced it prompted Edward Snowden to blow the whistle in the first place. Lying to Congress is illegal, yet Clapper still hasn’t been punished for his perjury, or even charged.

And now, with the expiration of the five-year statutes of limitations this past Monday, it seems he never will be. And that isn’t remotely surprising.

Former intelligence chief James Clapper is poised to avoid charges for allegedly lying to Congress after five years of apparent inaction by the Justice Department.

Clapper, director of national intelligence from 2010 to 2017, admitted giving “clearly erroneous” testimony about mass surveillance in March 2013, and offered differing explanations for why.

Two criminal statutes that cover lying to Congress have five-year statutes of limitations, establishing a Monday deadline to charge Clapper […]

Clapper’s problematic testimony occurred a few minutes before noon on March 12, 2013, when he told Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., “No, sir,” and, “Not wittingly,” in response to a question about whether the NSA was collecting “any type of data at all” on millions of Americans.

Most criminals try to evade punishment by dodging the cops or using masks and online proxies to hide their identity. What they should do instead is work for the government and climb their way to a position of power, at which point they can do all the wrongdoing they want and lie about it under oath, and the corrupt officials and craven politicos around them will make sure they never pay a price.

Gina Haspel

And if their crimes are inhumane enough, they may even get promoted.

When President Donald Trump nominated Gina Haspel on Tuesday to be the next CIA director, he selected a seasoned intelligence officer with decades of experience, but also a key figure in the agency's troubled legacy of using torture as an interrogation tactic.

[…]

From 2003 to 2005, Haspel oversaw the top-secret CIA program where dozens of suspected terrorists were deprived of sleep, stuffed into coffins and had water forced down their throats, according to The New Yorker.

While overseas, she also ran a CIA "black site" — or secret prison — in Thailand where suspected terrorists Ab Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri were waterboarded in 2002, NBC News confirmed.

[…]

She also assisted with an order to destroy CIA waterboarding videos.

ProPublica has more on Haspel’s torture record, including a telling bit about how she mocked Zubaydah and accused him of faking his psychological breakdown. Whether this was before or after he was waterboarded 83 times in one month is unclear.

The UN Convention Against Torture, which the US is ostensibly bound by, unambiguously demands that any and all torturers be prosecuted. Yet not a single war criminal involved in the Bush administration’s “enhanced interrogation” regime has ever been charged. And now, someone who personally oversaw – and according to the above-linked report, participated in – the torture of detainees at the secret military base she ran is being rewarded with a prestigious job and even more power and influence.

The idea of accountability in the higher echelons of government is so ridiculous, it wouldn’t even pass for a joke.

(via @Snowden; @csmcdaniel, retweet by @KFILE)

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UPDATE (03/15/18 @ 8:50 PM ET) —

ProPublica has just posted a major update/retraction: Whilst Gina Haspel did run a “black site” in Thailand and oversaw torture of at least one detainee there, she was not involved in the waterboarding of Abu Zubaydah and she didn’t mock him. She only arrived at the Thailand base and took command there after Zubaydah’s torture had ended. She was, however, involved in the waterboarding of al-Nashiri, and she helped destroy recordings of his and other detainees’ torture sessions on her boss’s orders. Zubaydah was tortured as described, but it was overseen by a different base commander. The original post above is left unchanged.

This correction notwithstanding, Gina Haspel remains a war criminal under the UN Convention Against Torture and the only occupation she’s fit for is that of prison inmate, as with anyone else involved in the Bush-era torture regime.