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October 29, 2015

NYTimes: Lawyers Secretly Prepared Legal Framework for Bin Laden Raid 
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New details have emerged about the 2011 raid that killed Osama bin
Laden. The New York Times reports four Obama administration lawyers
worked in secret for weeks ahead of the raid to devise a legal
justification for it. According to the Times, the four lawyers were CIA
general counsel Stephen Preston, National Security Council legal adviser
Mary De Rosa, Joint Chiefs of Staff legal adviser James Crawford and
Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, who was at the time the
Pentagon's general counsel. The framework they created reportedly
allowed the Obama administration to send U.S. ground forces into
Pakistan without Pakistani consent, to explicitly authorize a lethal
mission, to delay telling Congress until the raid was completed and to
bury a wartime enemy at sea. Stephen Preston reportedly said in the days
leading up to the raid, "We should memorialize our rationales because we
may be called upon to explain our legal conclusions, particularly if the
operation goes terribly badly." Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh has
raised significant questions about the Obama administration's account of
the raid, reporting that top Pakistani military leaders knew about the
operation and provided key assistance.

 

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