Attorney General Eric Holder will on Monday afternoon deliver a speech that will lay out the legal framework for the Obama administration’s use of targeted killing without referencing individual drone attacks, a source familiar with the upcoming speech told TPM.
Holder’s speech at Northwestern Law School in Chicago, scheduled to be delivered at 4:30PM eastern, will also focus on the administration’s approach to counterterrorism and detail the criteria for the use of reformed military commissions and Article III courts.
As the Associated Press notes, Holder’s speech comes five months after the targeted killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen. That killing was reportedly authorized by a secret Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) memo that the administration has thus far refused to make public. The New York Times has a lawsuit pending to gain access to the memo.
