(Reader Supported News) — resident Trump’s decision to nominate Gina Haspel as director of the Central Intelligence Agency is one of the most polarizing personnel decisions of his presidency. Predictably, progressives like senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) have come out strongly against her. Libertarian-leaning Republican senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said that not only will he vote against Haspel, he will also filibuster the nomination. Paul does that kind of thing to nominees who have a background in the CIA’s torture program; he filibustered John Brennan’s nomination as CIA director when President Obama made that appointment in 2013.
But there is also a conservative case to be made against Haspel. At least, there is a Christian case against her.
Almost none of my progressive friends (and most of my friends are on the left) know that I’m a former adjunct professor of intelligence studies at Liberty University, the right-wing evangelical university founded by the late Jerry Falwell. Liberty prides itself on its record of turning out conservatives and evangelicals and preparing them for a life of activism. I was assigned to the Helms School of Government, named after the late Republican senator Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), one of the most deeply conservative members that body has ever seen. I genuinely liked and respected every single professor and administrator I encountered at the Helms School, and I consider many of them to be my friends.
