James Mitchell: KSM predicted what the Dems would do to me

Megyn Kelly interviewed CIA interrogator James Mitchell last night on FNC’s Kelly File over three segments. Mitchell is a psychologist who helped fashion the CIA’s enhanced interrogation program and is one of the men who interrogated KSM. As such, he comes in for criticism in the Senate Intelligence Committee Democrats’ recently released report (or executive summary).

FOX News Insider covers the interview and breaks it into clips here. The video below compiles all three segments and it is well worth the time to view it in its entirety.

Kelly is without doubt the best interviewer on television. I don’t think there is a close second. She needed to bring all her skills to bear in the course of the interview last night (and I think she did so live).

Mitchell did not make for an an easy interview. He was guarded and angry. Kelly worked hard to get Mitchell to open up and bring the subject to life. Watching the interview, I thought Kelly would need to waterboard Mitchell himself to get him to open up. Nevertheless, the interview comes alive at about 18:00 and really takes off in the third segment (beginning at 22:48).

Quotable quotes: “I do not mind giving my life for my country, but I do mind giving my life for a food fight for political reasons between two groups of people who should be able to work it out like adults.”

“Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has the opportunity to address the charges against him, but I don’t.”

“[The Senate Intelligence Committee Democrats’ report] shows al Qaeda and the al Qaeda 2.0 folks, ISIL, that we’re divided and that we’re easy targets, that we don’t have the will to defeat them because that’s what they know. In fact, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed told me personally, ‘Your country will turn on you, the liberal media will turn on you, the people will grow tired of this, they will turn on you, and when they do, you are going to be abandoned.”

UPDATE: RCP draws attention to Toby Harnden’s “James Mithcell, CIA’s ‘torture teacher’ hits back.”

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