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Senator: White House Providing Us Memos to Justify Drone Use

Mar. 5, 2013 12:05pm Erica Ritz

Senator: White House Provides Us Memos to Justify Drone Use

U.S. Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism John Brennan, nominated by U.S. President Barack Obama to be the next Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, testifies before the Senate Intelligence Committee February 7, 2013 in Washington, DC. (Photo: Getty Images)

Editor’s note: TheBlaze’s Billy Hallowell has published a follow-up post with stunning revelations on the U.S. drone program obtained by Senator Rand Paul (R-KY).

Click here to read the entire story.

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(TheBlaze/AP) — The Senate Intelligence Committee is scheduled to vote on President Barack Obama’s pick to lead the CIA after weeks of wrangling with the White House over access to top-secret information about the use of lethal drone strikes against terror suspects, and the attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya.

On Tuesday, Feinstein announced that the White House is providing the panel with all of the top-secret Justice Department memos that justify the use of lethal drone strikes against terror suspects– including American citizens.

But Glenn Beck said on his radio program Tuesday that Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) could break previously-unheard information about the American drone program later in the day.

Beck said of the potential announcement: “If this is true, which Rand says it is, I think — maybe the biggest story in our lifetime?”

Neither gave specifics about what that information might be.

Brennan so far has escaped the harsh treatment that former Sen. Chuck Hagel, even though Brennan is one of Obama’s most important national security aides and the White House official who oversees the drone program.

Brennan also served as a senior CIA official during President George W. Bush’s administration when waterboarding and other forms of “enhanced interrogation” and detention practices were adopted. Brennan has publicly denounced the use of these tactics, but the cloud hasn’t gone completely away.

Brennan’s stance on waterboarding and torture is inconsistent, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., has said. Although Brennan has decried these methods, he also has said they saved lives, according to McCain, who said he is awaiting an explanation from Brennan. McCain and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., are also leading the charge for the Benghazi records.

“All we want is the answers,” McCain said Monday. “I’m not threatening anything. I just think we deserve the answers.”

Former Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., who spent eight years on the House Intelligence Committee, said she expects Brennan to be confirmed by a comfortable margin. Senate Republicans took Hagel’s nomination personally, she said, and they’re unlikely to take a similar approach with Brennan.

“I don’t think they’re going to try the same play twice and really seriously wound Obama’s national security team at a time when it’s very important that we project strength,” said Harman, president of the Wilson Center in Washington.

Brennan vigorously defended the use of drone strikes during his confirmation hearing. He declined to say whether he believes waterboarding, which simulates drowning, amounted to torture. But he called the practice “reprehensible” and said it should never be done again. Obama ordered waterboarding banned shortly after taking office.

Drone strikes are employed only as a “last resort,” Brennan told the committee. But he also said he had no qualms about going after U.S.-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in September 2011. A drone strike in Yemen killed al-Awlaki and Samir Khan, both U.S. citizens. A drone strike two weeks later killed al-Awlaki’s 16-year-old son, a Denver native.

Graham, one of Hagel’s most acerbic critics, said last month that the Obama administration deserved an “A-plus” for its drone program and he rejected an idea floated by Feinstein and other senators to establish a special court system to regulate drone strikes.

“I’m 100 percent behind the administration,” Graham said. “I think their program has been legal, ethical and wise.”

But Graham, along with McCain, said the failure to turn over the Benghazi records is a dealbreaker. Graham said Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that he and McCain “are hell-bent on making sure the American people understand this debacle called Benghazi.”

Brennan spent 25 years at the CIA before moving in 2003 from his job as deputy executive director of the agency to run the Terrorist Threat Integration Center. He later worked as interim director of the center’s successor organization, the National Counterterrorism Center.

When Bush’s second term began in 2005, Brennan left government to work for a company that provides counterterror analysis to federal agencies. After Obama took office in 2009, he returned to the federal payroll as the president’s top counterterrorism adviser in the White House.

If confirmed by the full Senate, Brennan would replace Michael Morell, the CIA’s deputy director who has been acting director since David Petraeus resigned in November after acknowledging an affair with his biographer.

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Associated Press writer Donna Cassata contributed to this report.

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Comments (24)

NoMoMrNiceGuy
Posted on March 5, 2013 at 12:28pm
Screw them all !

Report this comment
Cymry
Posted on March 5, 2013 at 12:27pm
Brennan’s company (as a federal subcontractor) ran into a little bit of trouble just prior to the 2008 election by having some employees (who have since become deceased) looking into the passports of John McCain, Hillary Clinton and (true goal) Barack Obama (aka Soetoro).

The reason the founders put the Natural Born Citizen clause into the Consitution is so that the President couldn’t be 1. beholden to another country and 2. blackmailed. Well, guess what…….

Report this comment
renee
Posted on March 5, 2013 at 12:27pm
We need some ‘splaining”. This cannot possibly be the ” biggest story of our lifetime” story that Glenn was waiting for Senator Paul to tell him. Come on, man, you got us dangling here still waiting for what Senator Paul just learned from Holder’s DOJ.

Report this comment
e.galle
Posted on March 5, 2013 at 12:27pm
Pretty serious, who’s drone was it ? Why was it flying in airline flight path space near an airport? You who don’t think this is big, you got to admit it makes you think twice about flying commercially, 2nd amendment issues, fast & furious. What will be interesting as hell, is watching National Security (and Napolitono is threatening long TSA lines), Obama and the FBI dance around this. Oh my god where is Axelrod when they need him. The spin stories are being created as we speak.

Report this comment
AUsername
Posted on March 5, 2013 at 12:27pm
send them to Iraq to be hanged.

Report this comment
civilwarcometh
Posted on March 5, 2013 at 12:24pm
http://weaselzippers.us/2013/03/04/poll-41-of-democrats-say-obama-should-be-allowed-to-unilaterally-kill-american-citizens-with-drone-strikes-on-american-soil/ Good grief, these were the same people who ranted endlessly against how evil George W. Bush was for denying (non-American) al-Qaeda members Constitutional rights when captured on the foreign battlefield

Report this comment
HumbleMan
Posted on March 5, 2013 at 12:23pm
Where’s the meat?

Report this comment
neverending
Posted on March 5, 2013 at 12:22pm
Another dog and pony show before the YES vote!

Report this comment
4xeverything
Posted on March 5, 2013 at 12:20pm
Hey Scott, you should have Rand Paul on for the Blazecast today to tell us his breaking news.

Report this comment
FlagWavingPatriot
Posted on March 5, 2013 at 12:20pm
Let’s see a show of hands…who here thinks allowing this overseas won’t eventually pave the way for armed drones over your neighborhood in middle America? Anyone? Anyone?

Government never cedes power; it only looks to increase it. Armed drones against any US citizen was a bad road to start down. Now all that’s needed is justification on a plain bond paper to kill anyone, anywhere, and without due process. The government’s convenience will become that justification.

God help us.

Report this comment
Snowleopard {gallery of cat folks}
Posted on March 5, 2013 at 12:20pm
Obama still has assassinated American citizens, murder.

Report this comment
spideer6
Posted on March 5, 2013 at 12:18pm
There’s got to have been more that hasn’t been printed yet that’s being verified. Seems like there’s something else going on.

Report this comment
UNALIEN
Posted on March 5, 2013 at 12:17pm
This is the context,, the content has not been released YET

Report this comment
judyaz
Posted on March 5, 2013 at 12:17pm
I have no idea how reputable this website is. I just think of Napolitano’s recent purchase of tanks, federal agencies’ purchase of so many bullets, and now this. Are we preparing for potential enemy attacks here, and war elsewhere? Put your ears to the ground, and listen to the rumbles in the news. Many are wondering what it means. Since it involves citizens as targets, we do have the need to know. http://www.infowars.com/martial-law-tucson-city-council-hands-authority-over-to-military/

Report this comment
- judyaz
  Posted on March 5, 2013 at 12:28pm
  What I mean is, does this have to do with “sleeper cells,” Iran completing the nuclear bomb and their arm, Hezbollah, who has been crossing our border for at least 10 years, the retired U.S. border patrol agent told us in an interview on the Glenn Beck Show last year. Iran’s liason through Venezuela? North Korean missile capability? Israel’s safety as Al Qaeda, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, and Iran’s plans advance? Or is there something else we “need to know,” to use the military phrase.
  
  Report this comment
war7412
Posted on March 5, 2013 at 12:15pm
This is the “”BIG”" news Glenn Beck was talking about ???

Report this comment
Rowgue
Posted on March 5, 2013 at 12:14pm
This isn’t anything. The senators were asking for the LEGAL OPINIONS OF JUDGES that found the practice to be legal and constitutional. Memos from the administration explaining why they think it’s alright to go ahead and assasinate somebody are meaningless.

Report this comment
Sharon Rose
Posted on March 5, 2013 at 12:13pm
Impeach the whole da@@ bunch.

Report this comment
- war7412
  Posted on March 5, 2013 at 12:24pm
  I agree !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
  
  Report this comment
Exidor
Posted on March 5, 2013 at 12:12pm
They want to take away our guns so we can’t fight their tyranny, but that can use drones to kill American citizens?

Think again.

Report this comment
DZ-015
Posted on March 5, 2013 at 12:12pm
Is this the big news Glenn teased us with before ending his program?

Report this comment
Hyperion5182
Posted on March 5, 2013 at 12:10pm
Is this the story Beck was teasing in the final 30 minutes?!

Report this comment
- bitterclinger
  Posted on March 5, 2013 at 12:17pm
  Why is this a shock? We all knew Obama targeted Americans with drones overseas. So they’re giving up the paperwork, and…?
  
  Report this comment
- DontTread
  Posted on March 5, 2013 at 12:20pm
  Doubtful. At least I hope not. Glenn does tend to oversell these things, but this feels different. I think this story up now is just some background or a lead in to the red meat.
  
  Report this comment

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