U.S. President Donald Trump's choice for CIA chief is privately assuring senators that she will not reinstitute a detention and interrogation program and will make the pledge publicly at her May 9 confirmation hearing, two sources said Friday.
Deputy CIA Director Gina Haspel plans to give the commitment in her "opening statement and she has been telling members that as well," a congressional aide told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
Word of the pledge comes as Haspel's nomination encounters opposition over her role in a now-defunct program in which the agency detained and interrogated al-Qaeda suspects in secret prisons overseas using techniques widely condemned as torture.
An administration official confirmed that Haspel has been pledging in private interviews with senators that she will never allow the CIA to revive a detention and interrogation program.
She also is telling them that all U.S. government agencies involved in interrogations should observe the standards set in a U.S. Army field manual on interrogations, said the administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Haspel faces a Senate Intelligence Committee confirmation hearing on May 9.
A public vow by Haspel not to reinstitute a detention and interrogation program would be significant, especially since Trump said last year that torture "absolutely" works and he would be open to its use if recommended by top aides.
Haspel, who would be the first female CIA director, is a career spymaster who once ran an agency prison in Thailand where detainees underwent waterboarding, sleep deprivation and other brutal techniques.
Then-President George W. Bush authorized the so-called Rendition, Detention and Interrogation Program after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
In 2009, the incoming President Barack Obama signed an executive order barring the CIA from using harsh interrogation methods beyond those permitted by the U.S. military.
Haspel also helped carry out an order to destroy waterboarding videos, which prompted a lengthy Justice Department investigation that ended without charges. Last week, the CIA released a 2011 memo showing that the agency's then-deputy director, Michael Morell, had cleared Haspel of wrongdoing in the destruction of the videotapes.
Trump's pick for secretary of state, now former CIA chief Mike Pompeo, was sworn in on Thursday after gaining a narrow Senate confirmation.