Torture controversy
In 2014 the American Civil Liberties Union helped three former CIA captives sue Jessen and Mitchell. Jessen and Mitchell sought the testimony of Cotsana and a colleague Gina Haspel. Spencer Ackerman, writing in '' The Guardian'', reported that the Department of Justice's assertion of state-secrets privilege as the first since President Donald Trump's inauguration. Thomas Clouse, writing in the '' Spokane Review'', reported that Jessen and Mitchell sought Cotsana and Haspel's testimony to show that they developed the torture program at the specific request of the US government, so the responsibility for the torture fell on the government, not on the program's designers. On March 24, 2017, '' Associated Press'' reporter Nicholas K. Geranios wrote that their judge had postponed their testimony until September, to give the Department of Justice a chance to explain why their testimony should be barred.References
{{Reflist, refs= {{cite news , url = https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/washington/articles/2017-03-24/trial-of-2-psychologists-over-cia-torture-pushed-to-sept , title = Trial of 2 Psychologists Over CIA Torture Pushed Back , publisher = U.S. News & World Report , author = Nicholas K. Geranios , date = 2017-03-24 , page = , location = Spokane, Washington , accessdate = 2017-03-27 , quote = Specifically, the defendants want the judge to let them interview CIA officials James Cotsana and Gina Haspel, saying they would dispel the notion that Mitchell and Jessen designed interrogation techniques that included torture and waterboarding, Paszamant wrote. They "acted specifically at the government's direction and had no involvement in the creation and implementation of any CIA program to capture, render, detail and/or interrogate any of the plaintiffs," the documents said. {{cite news , url = http://www.afiomaine.org/2012/08/28/120/ , title = October 20 Meeting The Truth behind the CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program , publisher = Association of Former Intelligence Officers (Maine chapter) , author = , date = 2012-08-28 , page = , location = , archiveurl = https://web.archive.org/web/20170328023129/http://www.afiomaine.org/2012/08/28/120/ , archivedate = 2017-03-28 , accessdate = 2017-03-27 , url-status = live , quote = With his twenty-six years of experience in CIA’s Directorate of Operations and Directorate of Science and Technology, James Cotsana is well qualified to speak on the issue. {{cite news , url = http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2017/mar/23/mitchell-and-jessen-attorneys-seek-judge-to-unlock/ , title = Mitchell and Jessen attorneys seek judge to unlock CIA records of torture program , publisher = Spokane Review , author = Thomas Clouse , date = 2017-03-23 , page = , location = , accessdate = 2017-03-27 , quote = Paszamant wrote that Haspel and Cotsana would be able to “connect the dots” between communication between CIA Headquarters and the bases where the detainees were held. {{cite news , url = https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/22/cia-torture-gina-haspel-court-deposition-trump , title = DoJ moves to prevent CIA official from detailing role in Bush-era torture , publisher = The Guardian (UK) , author = Spencer Ackerman , author-link = Spencer Ackerman , date = 2017-02-22 , page = , location = New York City , accessdate = 2017-03-27 , quote = The government asked the court to permit it to formally submit on 8 March its state-secrets argument preventing them and another CIA witness, James Cotsana, from being deposed. It is believed to be the first assertion of the state secrets privilege under the Trump administration. People of the Central Intelligence Agency