http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/19/washington/19rizzo.html?_r=2&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1182259237-/nAGKYzaAxCpbYt4DChSSwQuestion Time for Nominee Linked to Interrogations
By MARK MAZZETTI and SCOTT SHANE
Published: June 19, 2007
WASHINGTON, June 18 — In the months after the Sept. 11 attacks, at a time when the Central Intelligence Agency had long been out of the interrogation business, senior C.I.A. officers scrambled to build a program to question terror suspects in secret jails abroad.
To check on the legality of the harsh interrogation techniques they proposed, they turned to John A. Rizzo, who was then acting as the agency’s top lawyer.
On Tuesday, Mr. Rizzo will go before the Senate Intelligence Committee for a confirmation hearing to become the C.I.A.’s general counsel, giving the new Democratic majority its first chance at a public airing of agency practices that drew condemnation abroad and set off a prolonged debate at home.
Mr. Rizzo has been acting general counsel off and on for most of the last six years, serving without Senate confirmation. He was first nominated to the position last year, but a confirmation hearing was delayed.
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