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Elisa Massimino

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Elisa Massimino is President and CEO of Human Rights First, one of the nation’s leading human rights advocacy organizations. Massimino joined Human Rights First in 1991 and served as the organization’s Washington Director for more than a decade before being named chief executive in September 2008. She holds a law degree from the University of Michigan, a Master of Arts in philosophy from Johns Hopkins University, and is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. Massimino serves as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law Center, where she teaches human rights advocacy, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the bar of the United States Supreme Court.

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Appointments, Confirmations & Budgets

Why We Don’t Support Gina Haspel for CIA Director: A Response to Benjamin Wittes

Stephen Rickard, Elisa Massimino   Thu, May 10, 2018, 4:28 PM

In his Tuesday post in support of Gina Haspel’s nomination to be director of the CIA, Benjamin Wittes wrote about “the insulation that Haspel stands to provide for the agency from a president hostile to the task of intelligence gathering and analysis.” For this and other reasons, Wittes argued, Haspel should be confirmed—even though President Trump has linked her nomination to his “enthusiasm for torture.” He also wrote that “barring revelations about her role” in running a Thailand “black site” at which d