Before Osama Bin Laden Raid, Obama Administration’s Secret Legal Deliberations

The New York Times ^ | 28 Oct 2015 | Charlie Savage

[Theoria]

Weeks before President Obama ordered the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in May 2011, four administration lawyers hammered out rationales intended to overcome any legal obstacles — and made it all but inevitable that Navy SEALs would kill the fugitive Qaeda leader, not capture him.

Stretching sparse precedents, the lawyers worked in intense secrecy. Fearing leaks, the White House would not let them consult aides or even the administration’s top lawyer, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. They did their own research, wrote memos on highly secure laptops and traded drafts hand-delivered by trusted couriers.

Just days before the raid, the lawyers drafted five secret memos so that if pressed later, they could prove they were not inventing after-the-fact reasons for having blessed it. “We should memorialize our rationales because we may be called upon to explain our legal conclusions, particularly if the operation goes terribly badly,” said Stephen W. Preston, the C.I.A.’s general counsel, according to officials familiar with the internal deliberations.

While the Bin Laden operation has been much scrutinized, the story of how a tiny team of government lawyers helped shape and justify Mr. Obama’s high-stakes decision has not been previously told. The group worked as military and intelligence officials conducted a parallel effort to explore options and prepare members of SEAL Team 6 for the possible mission.

The legal analysis offered the administration wide flexibility to send ground forces onto Pakistani soil without the country’s consent, to explicitly authorize a lethal mission, to delay telling Congress until afterward, and to bury a wartime enemy at sea. By the end, one official said, the lawyers concluded that there was “clear and ample authority for the use of lethal force under U.S. and international law.”

[Zuben Elgenubi]

the White House would not let them consult aides or even the administration’s top lawyer, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.

Yeah, right.

[SeaHawkFan]

Some decisions are easy. Killing Osama Bin Laden was one of them. No need to consult lawyers. It’s a freaking war against terrorism.

[basil]

Is this one of those deals where if their lips are moving, they’re lying?

[Don Corleone]

Exactly how NOT to do the nations business.

[Responsibility2nd]

While the Bin Laden operation has been much scrutinized, the story of how a tiny team of government lawyers helped shape and justify Mr. Obama’s high-stakes decision has not been previously told.

There is a lot of info that has not been told. Or it has been suppressed and sent down the memory hole.

What is intriguing here is how Obama bin Laden had Osama bin Laden on ice for months, possibly years.

At the right political moment when Trump was doing MAJOR DAMAGE to Obama and his lies (remember Trump kicking butt on Certifigate?) - Obama creates a diversion and has OBL taken out.

It should have been a great day for Americans, but even Obama can Obama-up a wet dream, and he did so by the lies and bunglings surrounding OBL's death.

[Zuben Elgenubi]

the White House would not let them consult aides or even the administration’s top lawyer, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.

So the White House is speaking to the select lawyers but not the top DOJ official? Yes, their lips are moving.

[Mr. K]

Here is what happened

Obama STOPPED the raid 3 times.

So they asked him hypothetically if they could proceed if certain specific conditions were met.

Then when those conditions were met, they went ahead as if they had been given permission already, and only called him in from the golf course to tell them it was underway and too late to stop.

There was even a rumor that they had to threaten to expose him if he did stop it.

This was thanks to Leon Panetta only.

Obama just took all the credit, but left the option that he voted ‘present’ if it went bad - and would be able to search for the culprits.

[Mr. K]

Here is what happened

Obama STOPPED the raid 3 times.

So they asked him hypothetically if they could proceed if certain specific conditions were met.

Then when those conditions were met, they went ahead as if they had been given permission already, and only called him in from the golf course to tell them it was underway and too late to stop.

There was even a rumor that they had to threaten to expose him if he did stop it.

This was thanks to Leon Panetta only.

Obama just took all the credit, but left the option that he voted ‘present’ if it went bad - and would be able to search for the culprits.

[Dilbert San Diego]

Can I make an observation?

We don’t declare war anymore. These issues would be clearer legally speaking, if we had declared war after Sept. 11th.

Does anyone dispute that Sept 11th was an act of war against us? We all know that Bin Laden was behind it. But apparently they went through all this legal ramification business, and I think they did it precisely because we were not legally in a state of war with anyone after Sept. 11th.

[DesertRhino]

So gay,,,

[marron]

Its a mistake to litigate war. It deforms law and it deforms war.

You are at war precisely because civilian norms and laws are not capable of dealing with a threat. If lawyers and judges and men in suits can manage a threat, you are not at war. When courts and cops are no longer sufficient to the task, you call in stout men with guns to clear away the threat, re-draw borders, expel the savages to a safe distance, and only once it is safe for the men in suits to do their jobs do you allow them to come out of hiding.

You don’t let lawyers manage warfare.

[faithhopecharity]

BS! Obama is the very personification of unconstitutionality. He wouldn’t bother himself with legal opinions of any kind. Even from supplicant ass-ki@@ers. The very idea of him doing that is absurd. This article is total garbage or propaganda at best

[SamuraiScot]

Its a mistake to litigate war. It deforms law and it deforms war.

Spot-on. Well put.

Okay, brilliant.

We've seen in real time how litigation deforms war, with panty-waist ROEs and war aims that aren't in the national interest—but instead are shaped to appease the "peace" (treason) lobby and pay off contractors who are political contributors to the Executive Branch and Congress.

But what happens in slow-motion is how war then deforms law: You get used to waging necessary wars through what I might call "enhanced litigation"—where you use quasi-legal process and argumentation before bodies like the UN, which have no jurisdiction, just so that, when the bad guys kill your citizens, you can kill them back.

Then the Progressives and RINOs take their turn in government and spread their appointees like cancer cells. These public-servant-conspirators perform that same litigious process—using domestic and foreign agencies and tax-exempt charities—not to buffoonishly "prosecute" real enemies like OBL, but to define domestic political and cultural opponents as military enemies in order to deprive them of property, liberty, and life.

By inaugurating this joint corruption of law and war, our own government has been transforming itself into an enemy of the American people. We will require a strong, ruthless national leader like Trump to walk this process back and jail or execute those who have been deliberately attacking Americans' Constitutional liberties.

[Tallguy]

“Lawyers, guns & money”