CIA-Director nominee Gina Haspel finishes her Senate Committee hearing on May 9, 2018. (Photo: Hu Zexi)

Washington (People's Daily) - US President Trump’s CIA director nominee Gina Haspel attended her confirmation hearing Wednesday morning at the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, in which her involvement in the agency’s detention and interrogation programs, as well as the 2005 destruction of interrogation videos, has become the primary focus.

Gina Haspel answers questions from members of the Senate Committiee on May 9, 2918. (Photo: Hu Zexi)

In response to harsh questioning from Committee Democrats, Haspel said if she becomes CIA director, she will not resume the detention and interrogation program. She later declined to criticize the agency’s use of water-boarding and other interrogation tactics while serving under former US President George W. Bush.

"I'm not going to sit here with the benefit of hindsight and judge the very good people who made hard decisions who were running the agency in very extraordinary circumstances at the time," Haspel said.

Trump nominated Haspel to succeed former CIA head Mike Pompeo in March. Pending Committee approval, she could become the first woman to run the agency since it was first established 1947.

A demonstrator is led out of the Gina Haspel hearing on May 9, 2018. (Photo: He Zexi)

Haspel’s nomination is a break from tradition as the post has been held by politicians rather than operation officers with actual field experience.

Haspel joined the CIA in 1985 and by then was an experienced operations officer. In February 2017, Trump appointed her to the agency’s deputy director role. For the past three decades, Haspel has lead multiple foreign CIA stations.

Demontrators met inside the Senate Committee hearing in opposition to Gina Haspel's nomination as CIA-Director on May 9, 2018. (Photo: He Zexi)

During Wednesday’s hearing, Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio asked Haspel if she would use ZTE and Huawei mobile phones. Haspel responded by saying she did not have any social media accounts and would not use Huawei phones.