FRANCIS BOYLE, fboyle@illinois.edu
Boyle is a professor at the University of Illinois College of Law and author of Tackling America’s Toughest Questions. While the administration now states it will release the memos Barron wrote only after the Senate votes on his judgeship, an associated white paper has been made public.
Boyle said of the white paper: "It's not a serious piece of legal
scholarship or analysis. Rather, the entire purpose is to provide legal
cover to Obama, [CIA Director John] Brennan, the CIA and JSOC [Joint
Special Operations Command] for the drone murders,
including of U.S. citizens.
Boyle added: "Barron co-authored the infamous Justice department
opinion authorizing Obama's murder of U.S. citizens. This is a total
disgrace. If approved, we will have a murderer and a war criminal
sitting on the U.S. First Circuit. ... So here Barron
and [his coauthor in the legal opinion Martin] Lederman deliberately
and maliciously write a get-out-of-jail-free card for Obama so that he
can murder U.S. citizens, which he does. ... Barron is neither fit nor
qualified to serve as a judge on the First Circuit
-- a post which would make him a prime candidate for a U.S. Supreme
Court seat. ... This is exactly how Bush paid back Jay Bybee [author of
legal memos on torture] when he put him on the Ninth Circuit. Obama is
worse than Bush in that Obama is a lawyer and
knows better
