9/11 mastermind wants to share information about Trump CIA pick

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the former al Qaeda terrorist and mastermind of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, is requesting permission to share information with senators considering Gina Haspel as President Trump’s nominee to take over the CIA.

The New York Times reported that Mohammed’s lawyer, Marine Lt. Col. Derek A. Poteet, submitted the request to a judge on Monday seeking to provide the Senate Intelligence Committee with six paragraphs of information related to Mohammed’s direct knowledge of or interaction with Haspel.

Haspel is a controversial nominee due to her previous work at a CIA black site that used enhanced interrogation techniques.

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Included in the court filing, which is not public, is the information Mohammed intends for the Senate committee, Poteet told the Times.

“I am not able to describe the information,” Poteet told the Times, adding that it came from the Mohammed himself, not from the CIA’s description of Mohammed’s interrogation in CIA custody.

A Senate Intelligence Committee report concluded that Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times during his time in U.S. custody as CIA agents attempted to discern information from the terrorist commander about possible future attacks.

During this time, Mohammed confessed to several potential attacks that he later retracted, according to the Times report, later stating that he lied under duress.

A CIA spokesman would not confirm to the Times whether Haspel, who was involved in the CIA’s controversial enhanced interrogations program, was involved in Mohammed’s interrogations.

Mohammed was captured by American forces in 2003. He now faces the death penalty for charges before the military commissions system at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay.