Supreme Court Justice Suggests Obama Should Be Jailed Over Drone Strikes On Civilians

Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh raised an interesting question regarding Obama’s drone strikes during a recent Supreme Court oral argument regarding presidential immunity.

Yesterday, Supreme Court Justices took oral arguments from the Department of Justice counsel Michael Dreeben on whether the president has immunity for actions made as president.

Kavanaugh first argued on whether Gerald Ford’s pardon of Richard Nixon back in 1976 could have been investigated for the crime of obstruction of justice.

He then asked Dreeben, “How about President Obama’s drone strikes?”

Kavanaugh was referencing the  542 drone strikes that Obama authorized as president that killed over 3,797 people, including 324 civilians in the Middle East.

Listen to Kavanugh’s argument here:

Justice Kavanaugh asks DOJ Lawyer if Barack Obama should be prosecuted over his use of drone strikes against civilians pic.twitter.com/7yBMmQMMZM

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) April 25, 2024

Author and producer Mike Cernovich had a good take on the DOJ’s response:

If you can’t listen to audio, I’ll summarize.

“We wrote a memo and cleared ourselves of any wrongdoing.” https://t.co/GP5PQf9aNb

— Cernovich (@Cernovich) April 25, 2024

Here’s what the Federalist reported:

Biden’s Department of Justice (DOJ) argued Thursday before the Supreme Court that droning American citizens is permissible because Obama’s DOJ said so, whereas questioning election results isn’t OK because the government also says so.

The Supreme Court heard arguments on the scope of presidential immunity after special counsel Jack Smith alleged that former President Donald Trump should be tossed in jail for questioning the administration of the 2020 election.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh posed a series of hypotheticals to DOJ attorney Michael Dreeben about the scope of presidential authority, asking whether Gerald Ford’s pardon of Richard Nixon in 1976 could have been investigated for obstruction of justice “on the theory that [Ford was] interfering with the investigation of Richard Nixon.”

Dreeben suggested that particular case would fall under “presidential responsibilities that Congress cannot regulate.”

“How about President Obama’s drone strikes?” Kavanaugh asked.

“So the Office of Legal Counsel looked at this very carefully and determined that, number one, the federal murder statute does apply to the executive branch,” Dreeben said. “The president wasn’t personally carrying out the strike, but the aiding and abetting laws are broad, and it determined that a public authority exception that’s built into statutes and that applied particularly to the murder statute, because it talks about unlawful killing, did not apply to the drone strike.”

“So this is actually the way that the system should function. The Department of Justice takes criminal law very seriously,” Dreeben continued. “It runs it through the analysis very carefully with established principles. It documents them. It explains them. And then the president can go forward in accordance with it. And there is no risk of prosecution for that course of activity.”

Justice Kavanaugh asked Jack Smith’s prosecutor, Michael Dreeben, why Barack Obama was never charged for drone strikes against civilians.

Side note: Listen to Dreeben speak. Can this guy be any more of a Beta? pic.twitter.com/438JfjQLDs

— RealAF Patriot (@RealAF_Patriot) April 26, 2024

Per Laredo Morning Times:

The Supreme Court heard more than 2 1/2 hours worth of arguments on the landmark question of whether former President Donald Trump is immune from prosecution in a case charging him with plotting to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Sauer opened the door by saying that, without immunity, President George W. Bush could have been prosecuted for “allegedly lying to Congress to induce war in Iraq” and Biden for “unlawfully inducing immigrants to enter the country illegally for his border policies.”

Roberts picked it up from there, asking whether a president who accepted a bribe for an ambassador appointment could be prosecuted.

And so it went. What about selling nuclear secrets to a foreign adversary? Kagan wanted to know. A drone strike on a U.S. citizen abroad authorized by then-President Barack Obama? asked Kavanaugh.