Internal review cleared Trump's CIA pick in videotape destruction

WASHINGTON, April 20 (Reuters) - A internal CIA review in 2011 cleared U.S. President Donald Trump's choice to head the agency, Gina Haspel, of wrongdoing in the destruction of videotapes depicting the harsh interrogation of an al Qaeda suspect, according to a memorandum that the CIA declassified and released on Friday.

The spy agency released the memo in response to demands by U.S. lawmakers for more details on Haspel's career and as part of its effort to bolster her nomination. Haspel's bid to be the first woman CIA director faces scrutiny on Capitol Hill due to her involvement in a discontinued interrogation program that many regarded as using torture.

"I have found no fault with the performance of Ms. Haspel," Michael Morell, then the CIA's deputy director, wrote in the December 2011 memo.

"I have concluded that she acted appropriately in her role" as chief of staff to Jose Rodriguez, the head of CIA spy operations, Morell wrote.

At issue was a decision Rodriguez has said he made in November 2005 to destroy videotapes showing the waterboarding of CIA detainee Abu Zubaydeh who U.S. officials believed at the time - incorrectly - was a top-level al Qaeda operative.

Waterboarding is a form of simulated drowning. Zubaydeh's role in al Qaeda was later found to have been overstated.

CIA officials have long said that Haspel drafted a cable from Rodriguez ordering agency officers in the field to destroy the tapes, and that she believed Rodriguez was going to clear it first with the agency's director at the time, Porter Goss.

At the time the cable was sent, Haspel worked in CIA headquarters outside Washington, D.C. Published accounts have said she was chief in 2002 of a base in Thailand where detainees were interrogated but arrived there after Zubaydah's waterboarding.

The memo appears to support the CIA version of events.

Haspel "drafted the cable on the direct orders of Mr. Rodriguez; she did not release that cable. It was not her decision to destroy the tapes; it was Mr. Rodriguez's," Morell wrote.

Rodriguez has said he ordered the tapes destroyed out of fear that, if leaked, they could put CIA officers at risk.

Haspel, who is now the agency's No. 2 official, is due to appear at a May 9 hearing on her confirmation before the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Haspel has the backing of the committee's Republican chairman, Senator Richard Burr. At least two committee Democrats have expressed concern about her nomination.