Heinrich Presses CIA Nominee On Torture, Government Surveillance, Iran Nuclear Deal

Press Release

Today, U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich questioned President-elect Donald Trump's nominee for Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) U.S. Congressman Mike Pompeo during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing.

Heinrich, who strongly supported the release of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence's report on the CIA's detention and interrogation program and backs a series of reforms to prevent the future use of torture, pressed Pompeo on his support of enhanced interrogation techniques.

Heinrich asked Pompeo, "You have been supportive of the use of enhanced interrogation techniques in the past, saying back in September of 2014 that President Obama has continually refused to take the war on radical Islamic terrorism seriously and cited ending our interrogation program in 2009 as an example. Can you commit to this committee that under current law which limits interrogation to the Army Field Manual that you will comply with that law and that the CIA is out of the enhanced interrogation business?"

Later in the hearing Heinrich questioned Pompeo on government surveillance and protecting the privacy rights of Americans. Heinrich fought hard for passage of the USA FREEDOM Act, which ended the National Security Agency's (NSA) bulk metadata collection program that allowed the government to collect billions of Americans' private phone call records while suspecting them of no wrongdoing.

Finally, Heinrich questioned Pompeo on his views on preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Heinrich asked, "The day before you were nominated to be the director you said you looked forward to 'rolling back the Iran Deal.' How would you characterize your position on that today and would you stand by that statement?"

Responses to additional questions Heinrich and U.S. Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) submitted to Pompeo in advance of the hearing are available here.

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