April 10, 2018

The Honorable Chuck Schumer

U.S. Senator
322 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

The Honorable Kirsten Gillibrand

U.S. Senator
478 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

Dear Leader Schumer and Senator Gillibrand:

We write to you to express our strong opposition to the nominations of Michael Pompeo as Secretary of
State and Gina Haspel as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. We urge you to vote against their
nominations and ask that you encourage your colleagues to oppose them.

Michael Pompeo has a deeply troubling history of anti-Muslim bias and giving voice to those that
peddle anti-Muslim fear. In 2013, Pompeo stepped on the floor of the House of Representatives two
months after the Boston Marathon bombing accusing Muslim Americans at large of being complicit. He
contended, “[t]he silence in the face of extremism coming from the best-funded Islamic advocacy
organizations and many mosques across America is absolutely deafening. It casts doubt upon the
commitment to peace by adherents of the Muslim faith.”1

Mr. Pompeo’s apocalyptic world-view rife with bigotry disqualifies him from serving as America’s lead
diplomat. A frequent guest on Frank Gaffney’s radio show, Pompeo asserted “[t]here are organizations
and networks here in the United States tied to radical Islam in deep and fundamental ways. They’re not
just in places like Libya and Syria and Iraq, but in places like Coldwater, Kansas, and small towns all
throughout America.”2 Pompeo has appeared on Gaffney’s show at 24 times between 2013 and 2016.3

1
Michelle Goldberg, “The Evil Is All Around Us”, SLATE, Jan. 12, 2017, available at,
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2017/01/mike_pompeo_trump_s_pick_for_the_cia_want
s_a_holy_war.html.
2
Id.
3
Peter Beinart,“Mike Pompeo’s Allies on the Anti-Muslim Right”, THE ATLANTIC, Mar. 15, 2018, available at,
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/03/pompeo-muslims/555680/.
The Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center both have highlighted Gaffney’s
extensive history of extremism.4 Gaffney stridently defended President Donald Trump’s comment
“Islam hates us.” Gaffney wrote, “[t]here is no getting around the fact that the practice of Islam as
defined by the faith’s authorities … is hateful towards those like us, who believe that our government
should be defined by a man-made Constitution, not by the dictates of a deity like Allah codified in a
doctrine like Sharia.”5 Additionally, by Gaffney’s confounding logic, Islam is not a religion and thus
Muslims are not protected under the First Amendment. These arguments are not made just on radio
programs but also in testimony in courts when challenging the construction of mosques.6

Gina Haspel’s nomination as Director of America’s premiere intelligence agency, establishes a terrible
precedent of elevating an individual who not only oversaw parts of the Central Intelligence Agency’s
Rendition, Detention, and Interrogation program but also knowingly destroyed evidence of torture.
Many supporters of Ms. Maspel point to her years of service to the Agency. However, as the chief of a
base of a CIA black site in Thailand known as GREEN, she directly oversaw the torture and
interrogation of Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri, which included multiple instances of waterboarding.7 Her
time as chief of the base also overlapped with the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah. Mr. Zubaydah was
waterboarded 83 times and, at one point, became “completely unresponsive, with bubble rising through
his full, open mouth”.8 Other tactics applied on Mr. Zubaydah included being locked in a coffin,
shackled in painful stress positions, nudity, and being subjected to extreme cold.

The CIA recorded these sessions and others. In 2005, CIA counterterrorism chief Jose Rodriguez
ordered the destruction of 92 videotapes in direct contravention of the CIA’s general counsel, John
Rizzo and a federal court order. After Haspel’s time in Thailand, she returned and became chief of staff
to Jose Rodriguez. Rodriguez later described that Haspel directed agents to use an “industrial strength
shredder” to destroy the tapes.9

The RDI program and subsequent actions disqualify Gina Haspel from being Director. As former
general counsel for the United States Navy under President George W. Bush, Alberto Mora asks, is
“Haspel the person the Senate would want to stand before the agency’s personnel as the model CIA
officer, the leader, the person to be emulated? To recruit at colleges and challenge students to join her

4
Report: Frank Gaffney Jr. and the Center for Security Policy, Anti-Defamation League,
https://www.adl.org/resources/profiles/frank-gaffney-jr-and-the-center-for-security-policy.; Profile on Frank
Gaffney Jr., Southern Poverty Law Center https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-
files/individual/frank-gaffney-jr.
5
Id. at ADL.
6
Id.
7
“Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Detention and Interrogation Program,” Senate Select
Committee on Intelligence, Exec. Summary, Dec. 3, 2014, at 67, available at
https://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/7/c/7c85429a-ec38-4bb5-968f-
289799bf6d0e/D87288C34A6D9FF736F9459ABCF83210.sscistudy1.pdf. (Al-Nashiri was waterboarded at least
three times).
8
Id at 3.
9
Christina Wilkie, “Trump picks Gina Haspel as first female CIA director-her history with torture could hamper
her confirmation,” CNBC, Mar. 13, 2018, available at, https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/13/trump-to-nominate-
gina-haspel-to-be-first-female-cia-director.html.

2
and be like her?”10 Haspel and others involved in the torture program were never held to account. At a
minimum, they should not be rewarded let alone be elevated to role models.

Many of our norms and values are under threat in the current political environment. We must honor the
sacrifices of those before us and stand firm in opposition to individuals like Mr. Pompeo and Ms.
Haspel. Mr. Pompeo’s long history of anti-Muslim bigotry and Ms. Haspel’s participation and
subsequent knowing destruction of torture evidence disqualify them from holding such critical positions
in the federal government.

Sincerely,

Saira Hussein D’Arcy Kemntiz

President Executive Director
Muslim Bar Association of New York The National LGBTBar Association

10
Alberto Mora, “Gina Haspel Is a Torturer. What Else Does the Senate Need to Know?”, POLITICO, Mar. 15,
2018, available at, https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/03/15/gina-haspel-is-a-torturer-thats-all-the-
senate-needs-to-know-217641.