No one puts Attorney General Eric Holder in a corner.
After Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) backed Holder into a corner Wednesday on the Senate floor on whether or not it’s constitutional for a drone to kill a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil, the Attorney General wants everyone to know he does think it’s unconstitutional.
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney relayed Holder’s message Thursday during a White House briefing.
“Does the president have the authority to use a weaponized drone to kill an American not engaged in combat on an American soil?” Carney said, reading from Holder’s letter to Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.). “The answer is no.”
Holder is backtracking on his original letter to Paul that said it could be “possible, I suppose, to imagine an extraordinary circumstance in which it would be necessary and appropriate under the Constitution and applicable laws of the United States for the president to authorize the military to use lethal force within the territory of the United States.”
Wednesday morning, before Paul began his filibuster, Cruz confronted Holder on the Senate Floor on his original answer that a drone strike was “appropriate under the Constitution” and eventually the Attorney General gave in and admitted it wasn’t constitutional.
And now, after Paul’s 13-hour filibuster discussing the constitutionality of Obama’s drone program, Holder just wants to reiterate that Obama does not “have the authority to use a weaponized drone to kill an American.”
Paul celebrated his success in a press release on Thursday:
“This is a major victory for American civil liberties and ensures the protection of our basic Constitutional rights. We have Separation of Powers to protect our rights. That’s what government was organized to do and that’s what the Constitution was put in place to do. I would like to congratulate my fellow colleagues in both the House and Senate and thank them for joining me in protecting the rights of due process.”
