Update at 12:52 p.m.:
Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul is filibustering the nomination of John Brennan as the next C.I.A director.
Paul, a Bowling Green Republican, is expressing his displeasure with Brennan's testimony on the issue of the possible use of drones by the U.S. government to attack citizens on American soil.
Paul is also upset with a letter sent to him by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. In the letter, Holder said the President had the right to order drone strikes against American citizens in the U.S.
Speaking on the floor of the Senate Wednesday, Paul said "no one person, no one politician should be allowed to judge the guilt, to charge an individual, to judge the guilt of an individual and to execute an individual. It goes against everything that we fundamentally believe in our country."
Original post:
Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul is blasting Attorney General Eric Holder's statement that President Obama could order the use of deadly force against an American inside the United States. The claim came in a letter Holder sent to Kentucky U.S. Sen. Rand Paul that was released Tuesday.
According to Politico, Sen. Paul and several other lawmakers had asked administration officials whether drone strikes like the ones the U.S. has carried out overseas could be used domestically. Paul, a Republican from Bowling Green, had threatened to hold up the confirmation of John Brennan as C.I.A. director if the questions weren't answered.
Brennan's nomination passed out of the Senate Intelligence Committee Tuesday on a 12-3 vote.
Speaking on Fox News Tuesday, Sen. Paul said Holder's opinion meant Americans could be killed while they're "eating dinner" or "at a cafe."
"The thing about the drone strike program is we're not talking about someone's actively attacking America--we're not talking about planes flying into the World Trade Center," Sen. Paul told Fox News. "What we're talking about is you're eating dinner in your house, you're eating at a cafe or you're walking down the road."
