Obama reverses course, approves providing legal advice on drones to Congress.

Obama reverses course, approves providing legal advice on drones to Congress.(Politico).By Jennifer Epstein and Josh Gerstein.
President Obama has reversed course and agreed to provide the congressional intelligence committees with classified Justice Department legal advice authorizing the use of drones to kill U.S. citizens abroad, two administration officials said Wednesday evening.
The sharing of the information, which lawmakers had long sought, comes on the eve of a Senate hearing on John Brennan’s nomination to serve as the next director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Some senators had suggested that his nomination could be blocked if the administration was not more forthcoming.
Obama made the decision Wednesday to provide members of Congress with the Office of Legal Counsel's advice, one official said, following the leak earlier in the week of a Justice Department white paper on the use of drones. The white paper appears to have been derived from the longer legal memo or memos that the administration long resisted sharing with the oversight panels on the Hill.
A leading lawmaker in the drive for access to the memos, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), welcomed Obama's decision but suggested more disclosure was necessary. "This is an encouraging first step," Wyden told the Associated Press. "There is now an opportunity to build on it."
Earlier Wednesday, Wyden said he would "pull out all the stops to get the actual legal analysis, because without it, in effect, the administration is, in effect, practicing secret law." He also accused the White House of stonewalling.
On Monday, Wyden and ten other senators sent Obama letter demanding access to the legal opinions. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) also called for Congress to see the documents.
"I passionately disagree with them not providing the actual legal opinion," Rogers told MSNBC Wednesday, prior to Obama's new move.
"Everyone – not just select members of Congress – has a right to know when the government believes it can kill American citizens," the American Civil Liberties Union's Chris Anders said in a statement. "This concession has taken far too long and falls far short of President Obama's commitment to transparency he pledged to abide by since becoming president.”Hmmm.....'Judge, Jury and executioner'.Read the full story here.