Says President Barack Obama was responsible for “the assassination of at least four American citizens” in drone strikes.
Kesha Rogers on March 19, 2014, in statements on her campaign website
LaRouche Democrat and U.S. Senate candidate Kesha Rogers of Texas has called for the impeachment of Democratic President Barack Obama. She lists among her reasons the “assassination” of U.S. citizens.
Rogers says Obama violated the Fifth Amendment “with the avowed assassination of at least four American citizens, Anwar al-Awlaki, his 16-year-old son, Samir Khan, and Jude Mohammed, without benefit of due process of law. Indeed, the death warrants against these individuals were effectively signed in secret, in a committee which is overseen directly by the president.”
PolitiFact wanted to know if the individuals named by Rogers were all U.S. citizens “assassinated” at Obama’s direction.
Rogers’ campaign manager, Ian Overton, emailed us news stories from The New York Times and the New Yorker magazine. We found more news coverage using Google and the Nexis news database.
The citizens
On May 22, 2013, the Obama administration “formally acknowledged for the first time that it had killed four American citizens in drone strikes outside the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq” since 2009, The New York Times said in a news story posted online that day.
The acknowledgment came in a letter signed by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder sent that day to the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman:
“Since 2009, the United States, in the conduct of U.S. counterterrorism operations against al-Qa’ida and its associated forces outside of areas of active hostilities, has specifically targeted and killed one U.S. citizen, Anwar al-Aulaqi. The United States is further aware of three other U.S. citizens who have been killed in such U.S. counterterrorism operations over that same time period: Samir Khan, ‘Abd al-Rahman Anwar al-Aulaqi, and Jude Kenan Mohammed. These individuals were not specifically targeted by the United States.”
A March 9, 2013, Times news story about the strike said al-Awlaki, a cleric born in New Mexico, incited and plotted terrorist incidents involving U.S. targets.
Obama’s role
Of the 2011 deaths, Rogers spokesman Overton said, “The Obama White House claims that only Anwar al-Awlaki was specifically targeted. However, there is no way to verify that, since the deliberations are secret. Either they were targeted or they were collateral damage of a kill policy. In either case, the program is run by Obama, who personally makes the final decision to kill a target. If the three were not specifically targeted, their deaths remain the responsibility of Obama.”
We looked to Obama’s public comments as well as news reports, including those Overton sent, for details.
In a May 23, 2013, speech at the National Defense University, Obama said he had authorized the attack on Anwar al-Awlaki: “I would have detained and prosecuted Awlaki if we captured him before he carried out a plot, but we couldn’t. And as president, I would have been derelict in my duty had I not authorized the strike that took him out.”
What about the strikes that Holder said killed U.S. citizens unintentionally?
News accounts indicate Obama likely approved those attacks as well.
CNN’s Jessica Yellin asked Obama in a Sept. 5, 2012, interview if he decides who will be targeted in drone attacks. The president said, “As president, ultimately I’m responsible for decisions that are made by the administration,” and said an “extensive process” is behind such decisions. He described criteria: The target must be “authorized by our laws”; there must be a serious, not speculative, threat; there must be no option to capture the targeted individual instead of using deadly force; and civilian casualties must be avoided.
Yellin pressed: “Do you personally approve the targets?” Obama said, “I can’t get too deeply into how these things work,” but again said, “Ultimately I’m responsible for the process that we set up.”
An Oct. 23, 2012, news story in the Washington Post said, “Obama approves the criteria for lists and signs off on drone strikes outside Pakistan, where decisions on when to fire are made by the director of the CIA.”
‘Assassination’
Were the cited deaths assassinations?
Dictionaries define assassination as killing a person, particularly a prominent political figure. Left open is the question of whether the person’s death was intentional or collateral.
After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, President George W. Bush signed an “intelligence finding” that enabled the CIA to pursue and kill terrorists around the world.
Holder has said the drone strikes are not assassinations because they are not illegal.
Our ruling
Rogers said Obama was responsible for “the assassination of at least four American citizens” in drone strikes.
U.S. drone strikes reportedly carried out on Obama’s authority killed the citizens listed by Rogers. But three deaths were evidently not intended, while it’s debated — and unsettled at best — whether the killing of al-Awlaki, targeted for his al-Qaida role, was an assassination.
We rate this claim, which presents these deaths out of context, as Half True.
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