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CIA Director Petraeus’ Traditional Military Operations

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One of Brennan’s answers to Additional Prehearing questions I didn’t gloss the other day is this one:

Question 8: What are your views on what some have described as the increased “militarization” of the CIA mission following September 11, 2001 attacks?

In my view, the CIA is the Nation’s premier “intelligence” agency, and needs to remain so. While CIA needs to maintain a paramilitary capability to be able to carry out covert action as directed by the President, the CIA should not be used, in my view, to carry out traditional military activities.

[snip]

Do you envision the CIA becoming more or less “militarized” in its mission, should you be confirmed?

The evolution of foreign threats will determine how the CIA adjusts its intelligence activities in the future. If I were to become the Director, I would plan to carry out CIA’s crucial missions, including collecting foreign intelligence, providing all-source analysis, conducting robust counterintelligence, and carrying out covert actions as directed by the President. If confirmed, I would not be the Director of a CIA that carries out missions that should be carried out by the U.S. military.

Brennan brought up the issue again in response to a question (which was prefaced by a totally inappropriate bid to his Jesuit training) from Barbara Mikulski.

At the beginning of her questioning, Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) noted dryly that she had been “jerked around” by every CIA director she’d known as a legislator, with the exception of Leon Panetta. Brennan assured her “truthfulness is a value that was inculcated in me in my home in New Jersey.” But when Mikulski brought up about the CIA’s increasing role in paramilitary operations, describing that as “mission creep” and asking whether Brennan would steer the Agency back towards its more traditional intelligence-gathering role, Brennan said only that he would “take a look at the allocation of that mission,” before saying that the CIA “should not be involved in traditional military activities.” But Mikulski was talking about paramilitary activities such as drone strikes. No one actually accused the CIA of engaging in “traditional military activities.”

Clearly, Brennan is making a distinction between paramilitary actions he insists (contrary to the many claims he’d get out of the business) are a central part of CIA’s mandate and traditional military operations.

To some degree, he seems to be saying he will not abide by putting himself in the chain-of-command to give a JSOC op a legally pretty face.

But I couldn’t help thinking about Brennan’s answers as I read this WaPo article. While the article never comes out and says it, what it describes is Obama’s decision — taken at precisely the moment when Petraeus ousted, ostensibly for a consensual affair — to abandon an approach put in place by the retired general.

President Obama is unlikely to shift his stance against the expansion of a U.S. role in Syria’s civil war, despite a death toll topping 60,000 and acknowledgment that key members of his national security staff favored a plan first proposed in June to arm the Syrian rebels.

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Did Administration Stall Congressional Oversight Just to Beat ACLU in Court?

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In an interview with WSJ last March, White House Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler said that publicly explaining the drone program would be “self-defeating.”

White House Counsel Kathy Ruemmler acknowledged Mr. Obama has developed a broader view of executive power since he was a senator. In explaining the shift, she cited the nature of the office.

“Many issues that he deals with are just on him, where the Congress doesn’t bear the burden in the same way,” she said. “Until one experiences that first hand, it is difficult to appreciate fully how you need flexibility in a lot of circumstances.”

[snip]

Ms. Ruemmler said Mr. Obama tries to publicly explain his use of executive power, but says certain counterterrorism programs like the drone campaign are exceptions. Opening them to public scrutiny would be “self-defeating,” she said.

At the time, I thought she was treating the NYT and ACLU as “the public.” After all, in a debate over releasing the targeted killing memos in the situation room in November 2011, she had warned that releasing the memo might weaken the government’s position in litigation, presumably the FOIA battle with the two entities.

The CIA and other elements of the intelligence community were opposed to any disclosures that could lift the veil of secrecy from a covert program. Others, notably the Justice and State departments, argued that the killing of an American citizen without trial, while justified in rare cases, was so extraordinary it demanded a higher level of public explanation. Among the proposals discussed in the fall: releasing a “white paper” based on the Justice memo, publishing an op-ed article in The New York Times under Holder’s byline, and making no public disclosures at all.

The issue came to a head at a Situation Room meeting in November. At lower-level interagency meetings, Obama officials had already begun moving toward a compromise. David Petraeus, the new CIA director whose agency had been wary of too much disclosure, came out in support of revealing the legal reasoning behind the Awlaki killing so long as the case was not explicitly discussed. Petraeus, according to administration officials, was backed up by James Clapper, the director of national intelligence. (The CIA declined to comment.) The State Department, meanwhile, continued to push for fuller disclosure. One senior Obama official who continued to raise questions about the wisdom of coming out publicly at all was Janet Napolitano, the Homeland Security director. She argued that the calls for transparency had quieted down, as one participant characterized her view, so why poke the hornet’s nest? Another senior official expressing caution about the plan was Kathryn Ruemmler, the White House counsel. She cautioned that the disclosures could weaken the government’s stance in pending litigation. The New York Times has filed a lawsuit against the Obama administration under the Freedom of Information Act seeking the release of the Justice Department legal opinion in the Awlaki case. [my emphasis]

But having now updated my timeline of the over 14 requests members of Congress have made for the targeted killing memos, she seems to lump Congress with the ACLU and NYT.

More troubling, though: it appears the White House stalled its response to Congress for almost nine months simply to gain an advantage in the ACLU FOIA lawsuits.

Here are the relevant dates: Read more →

Patrick Leahy Is Confused

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Senate Judiciary Committee Chair, Patrick Leahy appears to be confused.

Early in the week, Leahy was one of 11 Senators who signed Ron Wyden’s letter demanding the Office of Legal Counsel targeted killing memos

After it was announced that President Obama would release the memos — but just to the Senate Intelligence Committee — he celebrated the move.

At that point, Leahy’s presumably largely liberal 10,000 followers would have believed that the President had finally fulfilled minimum standards of oversight.

Meanwhile, his colleague on the Senate Judiciary Committee complained about the move.

Grassley’s 65,000 followers would have correctly learned (assuming they’re fluent in Grasslese) that Obama had not yet given the memos to the committee that oversees the people who wrote the memos.

It turns out, the same day they sent these tweets, Leahy and Grassley sent a letter to the President “respectfully requesting” any and all memos.

We were informed last evening that you had directed the Department to provide copies of relevant OLC opinions to members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, but not this Committee.

[snip]

Our Committee plays an important role in providing congressional oversight over important national security and intelligence activities conducted by the Executive Branch, and our Members and our staff have frequently been provided access to highly classified documents. Given the important constitutional issues implicated by the targeted killing of U.S. citizens by our Government, and given our Committee’s jurisdiction over these issues and the Department, we respectfully request that you direct the Department to promptly provide our Committee with access to unredacted copies of any and all legal opinions drafted by OLC that pertain to the targeted killing of U.S. citizens abroad.

This is not exactly the way to conduct oversight, in my opinion, to contribute to the Administration’s limited hangout, leading people to believe the President isn’t, still, stonewalling.

Let’s be clear. According to both Ron Wyden and Dianne Feinstein, the Administration hasn’t even provided all the memos to the Intelligence Committees (it provided 2, but there are 8 more).

It seems the Administration plans to drib and drabble this demand, perhaps long enough to get past the date, tentatively scheduled for Valentines Day, when people will start voting for John Brennan’s nomination to be be CIA Director. That is, it seems the Administration plans to outlast these demands for accountability.

And Pat Leahy, insofar as he is muddling the issue of all memos to all the oversight committees (and the very least), is helping.

One of Just Four Overseers on Drone Targeting Believes First Amendment Protected Activities Merit Execution

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While the Gang of Four do not have access to the CIA’s kill list (and therefore did not know whether Samir Khan was on it before his death), they are the only people outside the Executive Branch who had, before today, seen the government’s rationale for killing Anwar al-Awlaki (and DOJ still has 8 memos on targeted killing to turn over). Thus, up until today, the Gang of Four has been the only outside review on that killing, 16 months after Awlaki’s death.

That’s all very nice because last March, in the context of the Administration’s refusal to turn over these memos, Dianne Feinstein offered this guarantee that the targeted killing program — and all other counterterrorism programs — are constitutional.

The Attorney General presented the administration’s legal analysis for the use of force against terrorists, including Americans. I believe it is important for the public to understand the legal basis and to make clear that our counterterrorism efforts are lawful under the Constitution, U.S. law and the law of war.

We are made safer by strikes against terrorists who continue to lead and carry out attacks on the United States. There are legal limits to this authority and great care is taken to ensure it is exercised carefully and with the absolute minimum of collateral damage. The Senate Intelligence Committee is kept fully informed of counterterrorism operations and keeps close watch to make sure they are effective, responsible and in keeping with U.S. and international law. [my emphasis]

That’s it. One of the only assurances that Awlaki’s death, and everyone else’s, is legal.

Which is all the more troubling given that DiFi’s judgement of what makes someone a legitimate target is so outrageous it made even John Brennan pause.

DiFi presented a series of terrorist attacks and asked Brennan to validate that Awlaki was, in fact, involved. It went something like this:

DiFi: Did he have connection to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab?

Brennan: Yes.

DiFI: Can you tell us what that was?

Brennan: I prefer not to.

DiFI: Did he have a connection to Fort Hood?

[long pause and serious squirming]

Brennan: As a member in AQAP he had a role in inciting a number of individuals. There were a number of occasions where individuals, including Awlaki, has been in touch with Nidal Hasan.

DiFi: Did Faisal Shahzad tell interrogators he was inspired by Awlaki.

Brennan: Yes

DiFI: Last October, was he involved [not sure she used that word, and she means October 2010] in the failed attempt to bring down cargo aircraft?

Brennan: Awlaki was involved in overseeing a number of attacks–there was a relationship there.

Now, it is rather telling that Brennan didn’t want to address Abdulmutallab; I think it possible that there are problems with Abdulmutallab’s confession, as I lay out here. That said, there is also NSA information (leaked by Pete Hoekstra and made fairly obvious by the Webster report) and, probably, information from people infiltrated into AQAP, meaning Brennan needed to protect sources and methods.

And the toner cartridge plot is pretty weak, too, as Jabir al-Fayfi reportedly testified that others from AQAP were really in charge of the operation.

But for DiFi to suggest that Awlaki could be killed because of his role in the Nidal Hasan attack is outright irresponsible. After all, FBI read the correspondence between Hasan and Awlaki in real time. And yet having read it all — and having read whatever else email Awlaki received between June 2009 and December 24, 2009 when the US first tried to kill Awlaki — they still didn’t consider Awlaki to be operational (though one office following him believed he aspired to be).

As of January 7 and June 16, 2009, the FBI knew Anwar al-Aulaqi was an anti-American, radical Islamic cleric and the subject of a Tier <redacted> FBI counterterrorism investigation. San Diego believed [<redacted> that Aulaqi was [developing ambitions beyond radicalization] <redacted>. WFO viewed him at that time as merely inspirational. The FBI’s full understanding of Aulaqi’s operational ambitions developed only after the attempted bombing of Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Christmas Day 2009.

Indeed, William Webster spent years trying to figure out whether FBI should have known Hasan was planning an attack from the emails, which is a much closer call. But even after reading everything that might have transpired between the two, no one believes that Awlaki had anything more than an inspirational role.

And yet one of the only four people outside the Administration who has attested to the legality of the strike on Awlaki thinks this should be part of the case to justify a due process free execution.

It got worse from there. She went on to insist that [rough transcript] ” Awlaki was not, by far, an American citizen of whom America would be proud.”

But like writing a bunch of First Amendment protected hateful propaganda, being “an American of whom America would not be proud” is not reason to be executed.

Dianne Feinstein, however, thinks it is.

 

John Brennan Decimates the Logic of Drone Program

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John Brennan will be confirmed as CIA Director.

But along the way he has utterly decimated the drone program’s legitimacy.

Twice in his confirmation hearing, he insisted he was not a lawyer. Most notably, Carl Levin went to some length to try to get Brennan to admit waterboarding was torture. Brennan said that he thought it was reprehensible, but he repeatedly stopped short of saying it was torture because “I’m not a lawyer.” Over and over again, he is not a lawyer.

He is, however, almost certainly, the “informed, high-level official of the US government who [determines] that the targeted individual poses an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States.” That person not only determines whether capture would be “feasible” and what “imminent” means. But he decides whether killing the person would be “consistent with law of war principles.”

In other words, this man, who can’t (or refuses to) say whether waterboarding is torture because he is not a lawyer, is entrusted every Tuesday to make far more difficult legal decisions, both on the subjective feasible and imminent questions, but also on specific international laws.

In other words, according to the guy who has been acting as judge and jury for the last four years, the guy who has been acting as judge and jury is completely incompetent to act as judge and jury.

How Can We Say John Brennan “Kept Us Safe”?

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I was struck when I read this line in Dexter Filkin’s article on John Brennan and drones:

None of the above is intended as an attack on Brennan, who has spent the past four years as President Obama’s counterterrorism advisor. He has a hard job. He is almost always forced to act on the basis of incomplete information. His job is to keep Americans safe, and he’s done that.

How are we supposed to measure Brennan’s success in the White House?

His title, after all, is not just “Counterterrorism Advisor.” It is “Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism.” Homeland Security and Counterterrorism.

As Counterterrorism Advisory Brennan deserves credit, I guess, as terrorism has declined from 2009 levels (2009 was a spike year). Though it’s unclear how much of that is organic, and how much a result of Brennan’s efforts. In any case, I’m certainly willing to give him credit on that front.

But say his Homeland Security mandate includes cyberdefense? If that’s true — and it was for Richard Clarke when he was in that job — then Brennan has most assuredly not kept us safe. We’re getting hacked more than ever and we have yet to implement a comprehensive program that will keep critical infrastructure owned by corporations adequately defended.

Domestic terrorism is sort of included in Homeland Security. Indeed, Brennan has been involved in responses to mass shootings of both the domestic terrorist and non-terrorist varieties. If that’s part of Brennan’s mandate, than isn’t the spiraling rate of mass gun shootings proof he has failed? How can Filkins say Brennan “kept us safe” after Newtown?

And then there are things that should be included under any Homeland Security mandate but aren’t. Chief among them would be, at the very least, increasing resilience to extreme weather events, but preferably even efforts to minimize the risk of climate change. Hurricane response is included, and there are still people in NYC who lack heat from Hurricane Sandy. Drought badly damaged the navigability of the Mississippi this year; does our failure to resolve that problem count?

Infrastructure safety is another; some of the very same corporations that refuse to implement cybersecurity defenses have had major catastrophes caused simply by neglect (which suggests the push to get them to shore up only their cybersecurity defenses is a mistaken approach). How do we measure that?

Honestly, I’m as critical of Brennan as anyone, and I’m not sure it’s fair to hold him accountable for all the Homeland Security lapses on his watch. After all (as this Congressional Research Service paper makes clear), we don’t have a solid definition of what’s included in Homeland Security. So until we define it clearly, no one can be held accountable to that fuzzy definition.

That said, we ought to, at least, be cognizant of the definitions those executing the mission use. This is actually even relevant assuming (as is almost certain) that Brennan is confirmed; there has been debate, after all, whether or not CIA should be collecting intelligence on climate change. John Brennan prioritized his own work at the White House, and he appears not to have prioritized keeping first graders and Sikhs in their temple safe from crazy gunmen.

The point is, we as a country need to get better about defining what security for the “homeland” means, particularly because it is intended to include non-military defense. We need to shift our resources and emphasis accordingly based on what the greatest threats are. The fact that we don’t even know how Brennan defined that part of his job — and whether he was successful or not — tells us we’ve lost the big picture on our security.

Five Questions for John Brennan

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I’m sure I could grill John Brennan for hours. But after a lot of thought, here are the five questions I believe most important that should be asked of him Today.

1) Do you plan to continue lying to Americans?

You have made a number of demonstrable lies to the American people, particularly regarding the drone program and the Osama bin Laden raid. Most egregiously in 2011, you claimed “there hasn’t been a single collateral death” in almost a year from drone strikes; when challenged, you revised that by saying, “the U.S. government has not found credible evidence of collateral deaths,” even in spite of a particularly egregious case of civilian deaths just months earlier. On what basis did you make these assertions? What definition of civilian were you using in each assertion? (More background)

In addition, in a speech purportedly offering transparency on the drone program, you falsely suggested we know the identities of all people targeted by drones. Why did you choose to misrepresent the kind of intelligence we use in some strikes?

2) What was the intelligence supporting the first attempt to kill Anwar al-Awlaki?

The US government’s first attempt to kill Anwar al-Awlaki with a drone strike was December 24, 2009. WikiLeaks cables make it clear that Awlaki was a primary target of that strike, not just intended collateral damage. Yet the Webster report makes clear that on that day — that is, until the Underwear Bomber attempt the next day — the Intelligence Community did not consider Awlaki to be operational. Thus, the strike seems to have been approved before he fulfilled the criteria of the white paper released the other day, which authorizes the targeting of senior operational leaders of groups like AQAP. What was the legal basis for targeting this American citizen at a time when the IC did not believe him to be operational? (More background)

3) Will your close friendships with Saudis cloud your focus on the US interest?

In a fawning profile the other day, Daniel Klaidman nevertheless laid out the following points:

  • You considered Yemen to be a “domestic conflict.”
  • You opposed signature strikes in the country.
  • You nevertheless approved signature strikes in Yemen because of personal entreaties from people you know from when you were stationed on the Arabian peninsula in the 1990s.

In addition, recent reports have confirmed that the drone strike that killed Anwar al-Awlaki was launched from Saudi territory.

Were the personal entreaties you responded to from Yemenis or Saudis (or both)?

What role did the Saudis have in the Awlaki strike? Did they have an operational role?

As someone with such close ties to liaison sources, how have you and will you manage to prioritize the interests of the United States over the interests of friends you have from two decades ago?

To what degree is your intelligence sharing — especially with the Saudis — a stovepipe that creates the same risks of intelligence failures that got us into the Iraq War? (More background)

4) What role did you have in Bush’s illegal wiretap program?

The joint Inspector General report on the illegal wiretap program reported that entities you directed — the Terrorist Threat Integration Center in 2003 and 2004, and the National Counterterrorism Center in 2004 and 2005 — conducted the threat assessments for the program.

What role did you have, as the head of these entities, in the illegal wiretapping of Americans? To what extent did you know the program violated FISA? What role did you have in counseling Obama to give telecoms and other contractors immunity under the program? What influence did you have in DOJ decisions regarding suits about the illegal program, in particular the al-Haramain case that was thrown out even after the charity had proved it had been illegally wiretapped? Did you play any role in decisions to investigate and prosecute whistleblowers about this and other programs, notably Thomas Drake? (More background)

5) Did you help CIA bypass prohibitions on spying domestically with the NYPD intelligence (and other) programs?

In your additional prehearing questions, you admit to knowing about CIA’s role in setting up an intelligence program that profiled Muslims in New York City. What was your role in setting up the program? As someone with key oversight over personnel matters at the time, did you arrange Larry Sanchez’ temporary duty at the NYPD or CIA training for NYPD detectives?

Have you been involved in any similar effort to use CIA resources to conduct domestic spying on communities of faith? You said the CIA provides (among other things) expertise to local groups spying on Americans. How is this not a violation of the prohibition on CIA spying on Americans?  (More background)

Update: I realized that I have left out a caveat in Brennan’s drone lies — he was talking in the previous year. I’ve fixed that.

Breaking: Most Journalists Mis-Report Release of OLC Memos

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President Obama has finally — after 2 years and 14 requests — agreed to let the intelligence committees see the Office of Legal Counsel Memos that authorize the lethal targeting of US citizens.

Kudos to Ron Wyden for having the tenacity to see that this, at least, happened.

But as big a story as this is, perhaps an equally significant story is the way it is being misreported.

First, even though quotes of Obama and direct statements from Dianne Feinstein and Ron Wyden refer to memos, plural, people persist in reporting that there is one memo.

Second, in spite of the fact that Obama has only acceded to letting the two Intelligence Committees have access to the memos, most media outlets are reporting that “Congress” will get the memos. Congress consists of 535 people elected by citizens. The Intelligence Committees consist of 35 people selected by party leaders. Among those 35 are Michelle Bachmann and Lynn Westmoreland.

And while on the Senate side, non-Intelligence Committee Senators can usually arrange to see such classified materials, it at least used to be that on the House side Members had to ask politely. And even still, the most responsible reporters are saying terms of this kind of access is still to be determined.

Ah well. At least 35 men and women can know what might get you and I killed. But you and I aren’t allowed to know yet.

The Administration’s Drafty Secrecy Claims

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As I’ve noted a couple of times, both Jason Leopold and Scott Shane FOIAed the white paper someone strategically leaked to Mike Isikoff this week.

Leopold requested the white paper in August, shortly after Pat Leahy discussed it in a hearing. Just weeks later, DOJ granted him expedited processing. But then his request dropped off the face of the earth — I guess the Administration treated this “expedited” request with the same temporal measure as the Administration treats “imminence.”

Scott Shane requested the white paper in December. In January DOJ rejected his request, citing deliberative process (basically claiming the white paper was a draft).

The disparate treatment of the two requests — and the leaking of it to Isikoff after two different people had been denied it already — is troubling enough.

But I think there’s another problem with the claim they made to Shane, that it was a draft.

The letter that Ron Wyden and 10 other Senators sent to President Obama the other day suggests that the reason they’re being given for not receiving the OLC memos is because they are drafts.

Specifically, we ask that you direct the Justice Department to provide Congress, specifically the Judiciary and Intelligence Committees, with any and all legal opinions that lay out the executive branch’s official understanding of the President’s authority to deliberately kill American citizens. We are not asking for any pre-decisional legal advice and do not believe that providing this information would violate and Constitutional privilege. However, if there is any concern that providing this information to Congress might implicate some sort of privilege, we would encourage you to simply waive whatever privilege might apply, if you would like to make it clear that you are not setting a precedent that applies to other categories of documents.

At one level, this language suggests a consistency from the Administration. Every single document they have on drone strikes, it would seem, is a draft.

Except that the Senators’ helpful suggestion — that if these so-called drafts really are drafts, then Obama could just waive the privilege this time around without implicating other drafts it wants to keep secret — suggests (I’m going to see if I can confirm it) that what the Committees have (remember, 9 of the 11 Senators are on either the Intelligence or Judiciary Committee, and so have officially received the white paper) was not considered a draft when it was given to them. If they already received a draft, after all, it would not be novel for them to get more drafts.

It’s just that when a reporter who has an active FOIA on precisely this kind of document asks for it, it suddenly reverts to draft status, until such time as someone finds it convenient for Mike Isikoff to have it.

Ah well, John Brennan has made it clear the terrorists will win if the Administration doesn’t presumptively turn over documents under FOIA. So I’m sure the Administration will sort this all out in “expedited” fashion.

Update: Thanks to Charlie Savage for linking to the letter off of which Scott Shane FOIAed the document. It reads:

On June 22, 2012, the Department provided us with a copy of a Department of Justice White Paper titled “Lawfulness of a Lethal Operation Directed Against a U.S. Citizen Who Is A Senior Operational Leader of Al-Qa’ida or An Associated Force.” That document, which is marked as “Draft November 8, 2011,” sets forth the legal framework for considering the circumstances in which a particular, identifiable United States Citizen may be targeted. In transmitting that document to us, the Department acknowledged that this white paper is not classified, but took the position that it is not intended for public dissemination.

So DOJ did represent to HJC, at least, that it was a draft.

Two more interesting details, though. The memo was finalized 5 days after the date — November 3, 2011 — when DOJ’s Office of Information Policy arbitrarily enacted as the end date for their FOIA.

And the memo was handed to HJC, at least, the day after DOJ responded to the NYT and ACLU FOIA.

Man, according to John Brennan’s own rules, the terrorists are winning.

Dianne Feinstein’s Limited Hang-Out

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Shorter Dianne Feinstein: “Well, the magical release of that white paper sure eliminates any need to release the Office of Legal Council memos that depict far worse legal theories, even to the grunt members of my committee who have are legally entitled to read it.”

I have been calling for the public release of the administration’s legal analysis on the use of lethal force—particularly against U.S. citizens—for more than a year. That analysis is now public and the American people can review and judge the legality of these operations. The administration has also described its legal analysis in speeches by the Attorney General and several senior officials during the past two years.

The white paper itself was provided to the Senate Intelligence and Judiciary Committees in June 2012 as a confidential document. The white paper (along with other documents and briefings) has allowed the Intelligence Committee to conduct appropriate and probing oversight into the use of lethal force. That oversight is ongoing, and the committee continues to seek the actual legal opinions by the Department of Justice that provide details not outlined in this particular white paper.

While the analysis in the white paper is not specific to any one individual, there has been significant question over the death of a U.S. citizen and operational leader of al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula named Anwar al-Aulaqi. As President Obama said at the time of his death, Aulaqi was the external operations leader for AQAP. He directed the failed attempt to blow up an airplane on Christmas Day in 2009 and was responsible for additional attempts to blow up U.S. cargo planes in 2010. He was actively plotting and recruiting others to kill Americans until the time of his death in Yemen.

The analysis is completely disingenuous for a number of reasons. As I have shown, DiFi utterly rolled John Cornyn when he tried to get the legal analysis released last year. She has done — and appears to be doing — far more to obstruct the release of the actual legal analysis than to facilitate it. And as at least 12 Senators strongly suggest, the white paper probably doesn’t reflect the memos (note that DiFi, like Wyden, uses the plural) — or at least one memo — that claims the authority to kill Americans solely on the President’s Article II power. At best, the intelligence (not evidence) to support the claims she advances about Anwar al-Awlaki is not a slamdunk; perhaps the  CIA is lying to her again, perhaps DiFi is lying herself to prevent Americans from assessing how badly she is fulfilling her role as a member of the Gang of Four who has presumably read the Administration’s legal justification and not objected to the President killing another American without due process.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, DiFi’s statement accords nicely with what Jay Carney said at the White House.

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