WASHINGTON — The US Senate confirmed one of the lead investigators into the CIA’s interrogation program to become Army general counsel Monday, one of four confirmations to Pentagon posts since Sen. John McCain ended a hold on some defense nominations.
The Senate confirmed Alissa Starzak, now the DoD deputy general counsel, more than a year after the Obama administration nominated her to the Army post, according to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. A major proponent of the investigation’s “torture report” as the then-chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Feinstein lauded Starzak’s experience and intellect on Monday.
“I urge my colleagues to confirm Alissa Starzak,” Feinstein said in a Senate floor speech. “It’s unfortunate it’s taken a year and a half since she was first nominated, but I’m very pleased that we are voting to confirm her today.”
It’s believed that key Republicans, who have disputed the investigation into the Bush-era interrogation program, held up Starzak for her work on the report as Senate Intelligence Committee’s counsel from 2007 to 2011. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and the committee’s current chairman, Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., have decried the report and were among those who voted against Starzak Monday.
According to Feinstein, Starzak’s departure came in May 2011, “well before” the report was declassified. Starzak, she said, was not involved with a subsequent controversy over committee staffers allegedly removing an internal review from CIA facilities without CIA authorization, and the CIA unlawfully searching the Intelligence Committee’s computer network to determine how the documents were removed.
In Starzak’s Nov. 19 appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., had questioned her about her access to the documents. “I believe I had access to it,” Starzak said of the review. “I do not remember at this point four and half years later, how often I accessed it.”
Monday’s vote came days after Defense Secretary Ash Carter admonished the Senate Armed Services Committee, which McCain chairs, over delays in approving defense-related nominees, “to fill key vacancies in the Defense Department’s critical leadership positions.”
“These positions should be filled by confirmed nominees, especially in a time of conflict,” Carter said at a hearing on the US response to the Islamic State group. “So I welcome that the process is now moving, and I urge it to move quickly for all of our civilian nominees and also for our senior military nominations that will be made early next year.”
In response, McCain, R-Ariz., said he would advance the four nominees who were confirmed Monday: John Conger, as principal deputy undersecretary of defense; Stephen Welby, as assistant secretary of defense; Franklin Parker, as assistant secretary of the Navy, and Starzak.
The committee’s ranking member, Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., said after Monday’s vote that McCain had been “very forward-looking in the last few weeks. We had one hearing a few days ago, and one tomorrow. We are moving to fill these vacancies.”
Twelve civilian nominees to the Defense Department are awaiting confirmation as the year draws to a close.
For months McCain had delayed confirmations for some key civilian Defense Department nominees to protest Democratic rule changes in the confirmation process and President Obama’s threat to veto the 2016 defense policy bill. Congressional leaders have since reached a budget deal, and Obama signed the disputed defense policy bill into law.
The freeze had not applied universally, as lawmakers in recent months approved the appointments of top-level personnel: a new Army chief of staff, chief of naval operations, Marine Corps commandant, as well as Defense Secretary Ash Carter, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford Jr., Vice Chairman Gen. Paul Selva and Deputy Chief Management Officer Peter Levine.
On Tuesday, the Senate Armed Services Committee is set to hear from Patrick Murphy, Janine Anne Davidson and Lisa Disbrow, nominated to be undersecretary of the Army, Navy and Air Force, respectively.
On Dec. 9, the committee heard from Marcel Lettre, the nominee for undersecretary Of defense for intelligence; Gabriel Camarillo, nominee for assistant secretary of the Air Force for manpower and reserve affairs; John Sparks, nominee for Armed Forces Court Of Appeals judge, and Vice Adm. Kurt Tiddd, nominee to command US Southern Command.
Email: jgould@defensenews.com
Twitter: @reporterjoe
