Rand Paul: I Will Do ‘Whatever it Takes’ to Block Gina Haspel and Mike Pompeo, Including Filibuster

Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said he would do “whatever it takes” to oppose the secretary of state nominee Mike Pompeo and Gina Haspel to replace him as CIA director.

Paul said “I’ll do whatever it takes, and that includes filibuster. I will try to make a point to the American people, and maybe the American people will rise up and say, you know, we stand in solidarity with those who seek freedom from torture, not the freedom to a people, to have someone run our spy agency that has all of this enormous power, who is intimately involved with torture and from everything we’re reading, was supportive of the policy. So, no, I can’t support that. And I will do everything I can, including filibuster. You know, filibuster doesn’t stop anyone. The only way I could stop anyone is if we convinced enough senators. And it would take a majority at this point to stop their appointment.”

He continued, “But when you read the torture report that Senator Feinstein put forward, I would hope that she will stand up and say, enough is enough. We’re not going to appointment people who made fun of the process and really, one of the worrisome something about Gina Haspel is, she was also involved with destroying the tapes. There were actually videotapes of trying to drown these people and torture them. And these videotapes were destroyed years later. So first she was involved with the waterboarding, and then years later, she was involved with destroying the tapes. There’s no way she should be running our spy agencies with all of their power.”

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