| 4 Dec 2020 – Some Democratic senators have reportedly expressed in private their concerns to Joe Biden’s transition team about the president-elect’s consideration of intelligence veteran Michael Morell to lead the Central Intelligence Agency, citing Morell’s defense of the spy agency’s interrogation tactics after 9/11. Within the past two weeks, Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Martin Heinrich (D-NM) voiced reservations about Morell, a former acting director of the CIA who had been widely viewed by lawmakers and former officials as a top contender for the job. Meanwhile, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) last week accused Morell of being a “torture apologist” and said Morell’s nomination would be a “nonstarter.”
The Biden team this week reportedly sought additional feedback from other Democratic senators about Morell, including from Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, who told the transition that Morell was a qualified candidate and that his defense of the post-9/11 enhanced interrogation program shouldn’t be disqualifying. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), who chaired the Intelligence Committee when it fought the Obama administration in 2014 to release a partially redacted summary of its report on the CIA’s use of torture, said on Thursday when asked about Morell that she had “to do more work before answering.”
Amid the outreach to democratic lawmakers, the Biden team has reportedly considered other potential nominees, including David Cohen, a former top Treasury Department official who later served as deputy CIA director under President Obama. Cohen, a partner at the WilmerHale law firm, spent much of his government career specializing in sanctions and financial intelligence and efforts at Treasury to counter money laundering, halt terrorist financing, and craft sanctions regimes, including on Russia and North Korea. Wall Street Journal, CNN |