Obama's Stalinist Judicial Revolution

by Will

Liberty Minute September 25 2013

In June 2010, as an official in the Justice Department?s Office of Legal Counsel, David Barron signed a secret memorandum justifying the summary execution of U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaki through a drone strike in Yemen. A few days ago, Barack Obama nominated Barron to serve on the US First Circuit Court.

The advertised purpose of the Office of Legal Counsel, or OLC, is to explain to the president what the law requires him to do. Since the administration of George W. Bush, however, the mission of that office has been to devise official justifications for presidential lawlessness: Rather than explaining the law to the president, the OLC?s task is to explain why the president?s will is to be considered the law.

Barron and an associate named Martin Lederman were instructed to compose a brief validating the pre-determined decision to execute al-Awlaki ? without conviction, trial, or even formal criminal charges. This meant reviewing a carefully selected collection of intelligence reports depicting the cleric as an operational leader of al-Qaeda, and searching diligently for exceptions to statutes forbidding the murder of US citizens overseas.

Barron?s assignment was to exalt presidential power by nullifying judicial oversight. Now he will continue that work as a federal judge.

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free. 

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