James Cotsana
James Cotsana is a security consultant and former CIA officer who spent 26 years in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations, the division that handles clandestine sources and covert missions. Before joining the CIA, he served as an infantry officer and fought in the Vietnam War.
His testimony has been sought to explain how the CIA authorized and carried out the use of torture at its secret detention sites, known as black sites.
In October 2012, Cotsana gave a talk to the Maine chapter of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers about “the truth behind CIA’s detention and interrogation program.”
In 2014, the American Civil Liberties Union helped three former CIA detainees sue James Mitchell and John Jessen. The detainees sought Cotsana’s and Gina Haspel’s testimony to show that the torture program was developed at the government’s request, making the government responsible rather than just the program’s designers.
News coverage noted that the Department of Justice invoked state secrets privilege in this matter—the first time since Donald Trump became president.
Some reports said the case aimed to show the torture program was ordered by the U.S. government, so the government bore responsibility.
On March 24, 2017, Associated Press reported that a judge postponed the detainees’ testimony until September to give the Department of Justice a chance to explain why it should be barred.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 23:15 (CET).