CIA Director Says If Next President Tells Him To Waterboard, He’ll Quit

By Jonah Bennett

CIA Director John Brennan said Wednesday at a Brookings Institution event that if the next president gives him an order to waterboard suspected terrorists, he’ll step down from his position.

Brennan has previously said the agency would refuse to comply with any such order to waterboard terrorists. He clarified Wednesday by saying refusing to waterboard was nothing more than his personal decision and he wouldn’t hold the agency to that stringent of a standard, The Intercept reports.

“If a president were to order, order the agency to carry out waterboarding or something else, it’ll be up to the director of CIA and others within CIA to decide whether or not that, that direction and order is something that they can carry out in good conscience,” Brennan said.

“As long as I’m director of CIA, irrespective of what the president says, I’m not going to be the director of CIA who gives that order,” he added. “They’ll have to find another director.”

Brennan’s remarks are likely an indirect response to presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump’s comments on waterboarding. He would use it liberally against suspected terrorists. Trump said he’ll use methods “a hell of a lot worse” than waterboarding, saying if Islamic State gets to use brutal tactics, then they should be prepared to be on the receiving end of similar brutality.

In March, former CIA Director Michael Hayden also claimed the CIA would refuse to cooperate with orders to waterboard.

“If a future president said that he was going to return to this, and he somehow creates the legal framework where it is no longer unlawful, I say quite specifically, he better bring his own bucket because the CIA is not going to do it again,” Hayden said.

Hayden also appeared spooked that Trump seems eager to use waterboarding with enthusiasm against those who he deems deserve it.

As the election moves closer, however, that refusal seems to have evaporated based on Brennan’s new comments at Brookings.

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