White House offers drone memo to whole Senate
by Josh Gerstein, Politico
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In an effort to remove roadblocks to the confirmation of one of President Barack Obama’s judicial nominees, the White House is offering all senators the chance to see a classified legal memo the potential judge wrote laying out the legal case authorizing a deadly drone strike against an American who was allegedly serving as a senior leader of a terrorist group.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) threatened this week to hold up the nomination of David Barron to a federal appeals court if the administration did not release the legal memo on the targeted killing of Anwar Al-Awlaki, who died in a drone strike in Yemen in 2011.
On Tuesday, the White House offered the senators a concession. It offered all senators to a chance to look at the legal opinion. However, Obama has still not acceded to the Paul and Udall’s call for public disclosure of the memo.
“I can confirm that the administration is working to ensure that any remaining questions member of the Senate have about Mr. Barron’s legal work at the Department of Justice are addressed, including making available in a classified setting a copy of the Al-Awlaki opinion to any senator who wishes to review it, prior to Mr. Barron’s confirmation,” White House Press Seceretary Jay Carney said at a daily briefing for reporters.
“It should be noted that last year members of the Senate Judiciary Committee had access to the memo and in his committee vote Mr. Barron received unanimous Democratic support,” Carney said, referring to a January panel vote in which all Republicans opposed the nominee. “We are confident that David Barron wil be confirmed to the 1st Circuit Courto f Appeals and that he will serve with distinction.”
Last month, a federal appeals court in New York ordered the administration to release an edited version of the legal memo in response to Freedom of Information Act lawsuits. The Justice Department has not yet acted to seek further review of that decision either from the 2nd Circuit or the Supreme Court.
The White House decision to make the memo available to all senators was first reported by the Associated Press.
