Obama administration to release drone memo on killing U.S. citizens

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Obama administration to release drone memo on killing U.S. citizens

Rather than appeal a court order that the so-called “drone memo” be released under the Freedom of Information Act, Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. concurred with the decision of Solicitor Gen. Donald Verrilli not to pursue the appeal and agreed to release a redacted version of the document, the officials said.

Administration lawyers are asking that the document be redacted to hide classified information, officials confirmed, although the legal reasoning will be legible.

The news leaked a day before the Senate was scheduled to hold a procedural vote to advance the judicial nomination of the writer of the memo, David Barron, a former Justice Department official nominated to serve on the U.S. 1st Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston.

The promise of disclosure did not appear to derail a promised filibuster of the nomination by Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky. Paul said last week that he had read the memo and wasn’t satisfied.

And in an advance excerpt from his prepared remarks, released Tuesday, Paul said he would oppose the nomination of “anyone who would argue that the president has the power to kill American citizens not involved in combat.”

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“I rise today to say that there is no legal precedent for killing American citizens not directly involved in combat and that any nominee who rubber stamps and grants such power to a president is not worthy of being placed one step away from the Supreme Court,” Paul wrote.

But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat from Nevada, said he had lined up the Democratic votes to confirm Barron.

“I think we'll be OK,” Reid said. “I don't know if everybody -- but certainly most everyone in our caucus is satisfied.”


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