let
on the phone always a pleasure to welcome to this program a crisp aise
the host of up with chris on them and send the c_ a and a contributing writer
to the nation magazine chris welcome to the show
camp
uh... now let's get right down to it what do you think about this storm
ticked
let's get right down to it i think the only thing i would pay
uh... enough by now looking at being uh... staying in a metallic over did not
know if i show tomorrow morning has been a
go back on the part folk but i've now become you put it no don't really want
to risk it the other day uh... cut down the uh...
the the subways
yeah yeah exactly so i think i think it probably prudence dictates
that i should do it although i'm sort of blows to pressure at that time with my
daughter uh... good at that age to your daughters a still what no slick only
chief
she's working on down
god really such a human shit
c printed being read books and and uh...
that way the highlight of the day's setting out on my lap dog person buxton
television drug about et cetera haha uh...
there are a couple
you know if there are no that preference
um...
so yeah i'm uh... amanda and took a look at that but yet we got to make sure that
we can get the show up and running tomorrow morning
well uh... your ah...
uh... they may not be going to have it danny davis's democratic ever but we
have our i'd say i want to touch on that but before we do uh... let's let's talk
about the i mean what i
is what i perceived to be so the big news this week is
the
uh... was the branding brennan hearings and this sort of thing
the release of uh...
well at first i guess and and and bc got hold of the of white paper which
purported to
summarize
at least one office of legal counsel memo which
outlined
the legal justification
war the a targeted killing program
and one of things that we learned
at least uh... by reading the
between the lines during the hearings essay was that they were more uh...
um... memos and
no uh... sometime either
ron wyden center on what news is
is is it at least
implying that
he may stop this nomination if they don't get those memos
uh... delete family and gimme ur sense first of of uh... of of of the hearings
uh... public hearings herb
well i'd they wanted they weren't the kind of
total embarrassing two bottles of the capitol hearings were so that i oppose
preying on occurred they were not equipment terrible
um...
i thought they were pretty they were largely pretty they were sort of
surprisingly tough time for us in someone's
jumped kind of you know khaki camel tries score some partisan points by
report in nineteen ninety eight to ten you know president made in the c_i_a_
where he had vetoed a bill have been you don't try to get a lot and they could
even take their intelligence or position that if that were some
you know naturally
uh...
and dreaded that i've got thirty there dot com points corner lot there is a
fair amount of institutional jockeying
which is kind of widget healthy but also you know i'm not quite sure how much
transferring out through how much of a three oh what i mean my institutional
docking is you know the oversight house intelligent oversight committee
asserting their there
oversight priority and prodded and asking john brennan
cuba he forthcoming and transparent rental things can go a little theatrical
if a you know if you're confirmed will you be transparent man an honest about
that he's says of course of the expenses that i think i have a major uh...
complain about
and he may have never had an unsurpassed right
so i've you know i i i found that whole thing like it's it all seemed a little
like everyone's going through the motions
there have been what we have not seen you know outside of a few select people
and one white and i would they would be happy with a point person on this
outside of ron widan
really has not been the
serious effort on the part of congress
to reissue
authority uh... its oversight authority and control
terrain in this kind of prolonged war on terror
there have been
specific inferences in which you have done it
but in his done his undertaking nothing
comprehensive on the orders say that i can tell any search committee which was
really the last time but that congress kind of us
sorted
and over yesterday dictatorial recite role or uh... and so i didn't pay much
apply from ron widan
change yesterday and the thing i think to remember is that
even if there are different centers of gravity and there are some resistance to
being caught out of the loop on the part of members of the uh... of the planet
they are
basically on the main page adds to the policy i mean
there's tremendous policy consensus around uh... targeted killing as an
instrument of american
foreign policy and immuno counter-terrorism and so
see a lot of of of debate over that which is which is
some stunning
and when you consider the fact that they only really gotten the
the the first
uh... i guess first and peak hat
what the justification for this policy aides and in terms of law the night
before and presumably didn't really have time
to really go through this and uh... you know what one of things that concerns me
about this nomination because
it would appear short of ron wyden saying view leveraging this nomination
to get more of those documents that this is going to be the way that congress
implicitly if not explicitly as says ok we're fine with this program
i mean once young wednesday
once they confirm the architect
and if you know of
to the extent that um... i've had conversations on this program about the
the memo or the shadow of the memo i guess uh... because we don't see the
uh... well see memo
in the uh... the
the idea
here here it is that i mean that's
not only is this sort of been in implicitly a buying into this abut
to the extent that that that we know what's in their it's it appears that
this was written
to justify the actions that were retaken in other words that this was written in
retrospect it was reverse engineered
the policy to fit around this and from what we know from what was released by
uh... mp
the this leak earlier in the week
uh... eighty
we don't even know what
we just know that
this case of let's say targeting uh... american citizens
is sufficient
to cross the threshold we don't even know what the threshold just how low
that threshold is
for it to be in waco
right i mean the document that we get a handle on it not been talking to you you
big weekend accused people should be clear you'd not be official opinion in
the office of legal counsel rare
um... the arms of legal counsel which is a a relatively of up appear to four
obscure well prior to the bush years i wish they had store all at the
department justice
which essentially kind of ax like the executive branch it's a preamble port
internally right
when the executive branch wants to know is something legal can we do this
the oil fee
issues
essentially issue the final opinion on that and we got to know the or feed
during the
from bush years because of the intimate spivey memo which was offered by john
you which had deep deep which was subsequently revoked because it it said
that torture was allowable
and legal and even creative threshold for corker that they've really anything
there
up to
something that would cause the amount of pain associate with organ failure
right so
the now overall fee there or female mos
we picked it up
seven of them
that are different iterations of the prosecution or reasoning and legal
reasoning as to why the government can cannot engage in the kind of car
detailing its doing broadly and the targeted killing specifically with
american
citizens it's taken this was
a memo written
based upon some of the legal reasoning that appears in those in in those uh...
actual official decisions memos that word that are classified and have now
been released or some of which have now been released one of which at least have
been released to the senate intelligence committee so the reasoning there is post
is is sort of exposed
zero publi one would hope
that both four they actually killed a lockheed the
even in a targeting date and there was a question about whether they can even
target him that rider to adding him to the list they went through walls
c and dot
they're black and we don't know that for sure
it would be fairly scandalous if the exposed went to all fee to have them
reverse engineer decision for a justification for and that i had a
conversation with uh...
with
scott hall uh... horton from harper's who
preview his sense was that this was reverse engineer that this is a
uh... part now of course we don't know we don't know what the dates are what
you're talking about a document we'd
seen i'm talking about the all well see memos that this is the actual stephanie
and
uh... that
the the program was set up
and then at one point it was like okay now how do we justify this
uh... bread which is which is very problematic that's also what we we know
of the uh... the body memos to his that these were
or uh... much of of the legal reasoning
was constructed after the fact to essentially justify a program that
already taken place or it already i mean uh... uh...
initiated anyways
and um... at the the thing that's problematic with this is the thing
you know now we don't know what's in those other
six seven eight uh... all well see memos
as to whether or not they address such questions as
the canoe it can u uh...
can you kill an american citizen on american soil
uh... you know there's there so much
and and again that this is hard because on we saw was essentially a shadow of
what the ol elsie memory purport to say
uh... but there is such a looseness uh... you know when when things like
imminent uh... threat is
determined
less by an actual threat but more
personified in someone who could be
problematic in the future
uh... when
uh... things like uh... the the the
the ability to capture
the that subject of a of the of uh... targeted assassination
is deemed impossible
but also
the
potential for
uh... u_s_ personnel
two into into to oppose undue risk to the u_s_ personnel that's like
wires uh...
love complete subject of analysis right
the risk right and then what constitutes undue risk
i mean uh... you know if you say there's thirty five percent risk that uh...
someone is going to get one of our team is gonna get killed uh... in this
mission
uh... that's uh... that's a subjective analysis and then whether or not that's
undo is also subject right
right and you know you can imagine that buchanan and in water complying to
uh... specific situations domestically right and she wants you-know-what look
at the branch davidians read more or look at what's happening in california
and then you know precisely but everywhere exactly and they get they get
shot
uh... so it seems very problematic it seems even more problematic
by confirming this guy uh...
is that the congress will have service
de facto signed off on the policy
i mean look at the matter to pack up and up on it anyway right away
you know i mean barney e mail party it's a little i mean even you know we gomer
unitech republican was railing against it on the floor and other conservatives
prom the cancer in the media have made a stink about a riverboat docked we did
about it
yeltsin it
as seeing you know i mean the italians ah... you either victim of auto correct
or like many black americans still upset about the role that the u_s_ government
played in the interest of cooking a lot of all the nineteen fifties when i hit
one of the tailhook it
but you know i'm looking right now my computer
and and april six two thousand caden
new york times front page above the fold article u_s_ approve started telling
american cleric but got changed
that that you know it was reported that we have added allotted to the
that the killers right subsequently he was killed
everyone knew that we did it even if j
carney when asked about it um... by member of the white house press corps
outages cappers been
good on this in particular perception on this
you know based with that i can talk about that we can talk about anything
with the program
you know all of the all of the kind of
l read your debate that people memo has precipitated tumi seems a little late i
mean
we've known that basically this with the contrato we do now have the explicit
legal rationale i think a lot of the things about the legal rationale as
reflected again if you do that sort of shadow
but it is this a memo
does not make you feel better
about approach program infill par as for instance the definition of imminent is
so widely considered a potentially be rendered meaningless
there or new fax but you know week officially we have all known i mean
anyone reading the newspaper has been known
uh... the basic contours of of the program and how it operates
and
you know their aside with the exception of ron widan in a few other folks right
there just hasn't been much i'll cry i mean i think congress so
and i haven't done much public outcry either i mean what there is right now is
essentially a kind of
complicity around
you know both international security establishment
moral lesson on board with this
administration obviously which is
which for the architecture on board
when both congressional democrats and congressional republicans
by and large are essentially on board
and the american public now
all of that did not add up to it mean the right thing to do for a policy
perspective of a legal perspective for moral perspective
uh... but
their you know it's nothing new for this hearing to essentially
actors product
you know taxes offense for right and i think you're right however that d d act
of confirming brennan
does something more concrete and often the gun at this time i don't like
on going on the record that you're fine with us