Political Quotes

“Madam President, we sent our last letter to John Brennan, I believe, in the latter part of January. We got no response. We then sent him a second letter in the first or second week of February and got no response. We then sent our third letter, which I believe is the letter the Senator was reading from, and that was a couple of weeks ago. We got no response to any of these letters. However, when the committee--both Republicans and Democrats--was holding up his nomination last week and the chairman of the committee asked for a response, all of a sudden we got a response. The response from Brennan was actually encouraging. The response, I believe, was this morning or yesterday. The day has kind of run together. That response was basically that the CIA doesn't have the authority to operate in the United States and that is the rule. It has been the law since the 1947 National Security Act. Our concern is that the Attorney General's response has been a little more vague. Basically they have not done any killings in the United States yet. They don't have any intention to, but they might. The problem with the ``they might'' part is they left it kind of vague. They said it would have to be extraordinary, but they point out two occurrences in which they would not have targeted drone strikes. They point out Pearl Harbor and 9/11. In both of those instances, I think it is appropriate to respond militarily, but they would not have targeted drone strikes.…”