Napolitano: US killing of Soleimani was odd, out of place, untimely and unlawful

[mia]

...The general's assassination was odd, out of place, untimely and unlawful. Odd, because the general's folks had worked with our intelligence folks in Iraq against ISIS. Out of place, because the Iranian general was welcomed by the Iraqi government and was not engaged in any violence or war crimes at the time he was killed. Untimely, because whatever he may have been planning to do was not an imminent attack on the U.S. or on Americans. We know this because Trump administration officials revealed that the president gave the kill order seven months ago, in June 2019. How imminent could an attack have been in June if it had not occurred by January?

And unlawful, because we are not at war with Iran, and political assassinations have been prohibited by still valid executive orders signed by Presidents Gerald R. Ford and Ronald Reagan. The U.S. Constitution limits the federal government's lawful power to kill to foreign troops in wartime and after due process, neither of which abides here. Moreover, international treaties to which the U.S. is party, as well as the laws of war to which the U.S. subscribes, prohibit preemptive killings except when the target is just about -- "certainty" is the standard -- to strike.

Now, back to the shifting sands of justification.

Shortly after the general's death, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo argued that Soleimani's attacks on Americans were imminent. President Trump himself claimed Soleimani was planning to attack four U.S. embassies in the Middle East....

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/judge-andrew-napolitano-deception-soleimani

[no_hypocrisy]

1. Hey, one more Article of Impeachment . . . . . .

[mia]

2. Abuse of Power

Independent Rep. Justin Amash on Thursday said he believes President Donald Trump abused his power by ordering the drone strike that killed Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani.

"Based on the information I have from the classified briefing I attended, I do think so," Amash told CNN's Erin Burnett on "OutFront" when asked if the strike was an abuse of power.

"Every military action that is non-defensive has to have congressional authorization under our Constitution. So, we have a 2001 authorization, for example, to go after the 9/11 perpetrators. We have a 2002 authorization to go after Saddam Hussein's regime. But there's no authorization that is pertinent to this particular circumstance."

He added, "So, the only way the President can act is defensively. So, there has to be imminence. If there's no imminence, then it's not authorized."

https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/09/politics/amash-trump-soleimani-cnntv/index.html

[Duppers]

3. This is from Fox?! Wow.

Thanks for posting hope that fox-bots might be exposed to some truth.
We knew TRump lied about the attack but Fox-bots didn't, until now.

[NewJeffCT]

5. Judge Nap has been really tough on Team Trump

since even before the Mueller Report came out - he's a principled Rule of Law conservative.

I don't agree with him on much else, but he's definitely not a fan of Donny Dollhands

[moondust]

4. Indeed,

I believe the general was on what would commonly be called a "diplomatic mission" when he was assassinated. He was apparently delivering the Iranian government's official negotiating positions to a mediator in Baghdad.

[MineralMan]

6. That's because it was an attempt at diversion.

It had nothing to do, really, with any real threat. Trump thought Soleimani would be his Osama bin Laden. Unfortunately, nobody had heard of him, so it didn't work at all.