Thats all ahead. Plus, the political right all at once, all in unison gets very vocally angry with karl rove. Poor karl. Frank rich from new York Magazine is here on the show tonight. Weve also got the latest Conspiracy Theory about the terrifying photo shopped secrets of president Barack Hussein obama. Did you know his emotional name is hussein . The conspiracies about the president get even more conspiratorial than they have in years past. Were beginning with a big deal, a story you will not see anywhere else, because it is an nbc news exclusive. Nbcs National Investigative correspondent Michael Isikoff has uncovered something that is not classified, but treated as one of the biggest secrets of this administration. Its something the administration has been fighting over with newspapers and with congress and with all different sorts of groups suing them who have been trying to contain what mike isikoff has gotten closer than anybody else to naming. And it is happening right in the midst of really big changes happening right now in National Security in washington. Today in washington, of course, was secretary of state john kerrys first day on the job. He was sworn in on friday after his confirmation hearing and his confirmation vote process that were frankly a breeze. In the end, the senate vote was nearly unanimous. 943 to confirm john kerry as secretary of state. John kerry, of course, will be taking over there from outgoing secretary hillary clinton. John kerry joked today that he had big heels to fill as the new secretary of state. President obamas second major nominee to face a confirmation hearing was another National Security pick, the former senator chuck hagel. His confirmation hearings for defense secretary were not a breeze. The vote on his nomination has not yet happened. Republicans in the senate are now hinting that they might even filibuster chuck hagels nomination for defense, which of course sounds normal, because, you know, it seems like republicans filibuster anything now. But in fact that would not be normal that would be unprecedented if they do it. The reason republicans are even considering doing this unprecedented thing is because they cannot block chuck hagels nomination by normal means. Even though the republicans have persuaded lots of the senators on their own side to oppose his nomination, they are a minority. And they have not persuaded any democrats to oppose him at all, at least none that have come out so far and said theyll vote no. Now, there was that strange effort which seems to have been a rightwing effort to make it look like there was a democratic and leftwing opposition to chuck hagel. But honestly, it was ridiculous. And we had to pull out the bullpucky siren. It was this really ham handed fake effort to look like liberals were opposing chuck hagel, but nobody believed them and they stayed anonymous and never came out of the closet and said who they were. So no opposition on the democratic side of the aisle. No opposition on the left, except for the fake thing. And that means that the republicans would have to do something historically unprecedentsed and truly radical if they are going to stop chuck hagels nomination. Filibusters a cabinet nominee . Unprecedented in modern times. Now, they might try it. But it will be a huge deal if they did. A huge enough deal that it might even finally prompt the democrats to change the filibuster rules. So its not likely. Now, if you are looking for a high profile National Security obama second term nominee who really might have some interesting opposition, who really might have some opposition from the democratic side, if not even from the left, its not chuck hagel. Obviously, its not john kerry. The guy you are looking for is the one who is up this week. On thursday of this week, president obamas nominee to head the cia, john brennan, will face the Senate Intelligence committee for his confirmation hearing as the director of central intelligence. One of the very first thing president obama did you might remember when he first became president at the start of his first term in 2009 was that he dropped the bush administrations torture policy. Remember, he did that right away. He issued an executive order two davis taking office to doubly, triply extra ban torture in the United States. At the start of that first term, newly elected president obama also wanted to nominate john brennan to be the head of the cia. But he didnt end up putting him forward. John brennan ended up taking his name out of contention for that nomination because of opposition to him being chosen. And the opposition centered on the fact that john brennan had been deputy executive director of the cia during the bush days. During the bad old torturing prisoners days of the george w. Bush administration. So youre going to have a brandnew president who bans torture, but then youre going to put a guy who was there for the whole torture regime in charge of the cia . Yeah, there was an effort made to make the case that john brennan had been opposed to the torture methods while he had been at the cia, but nothing in his known professional tenure backed that up. At least not enough to save his nomination. And john brennan withdrew his name from consideration that year and he did not run the cia during Barack Obamas first term. Instead, he got the worlds greatest consolation prize. He became a very close white house adviser to the president. His white house counterterrorism adviser, and he was there at a time when the cia and the United States generally were not known for torturing people. We are not known for torturing people anymore. What we are known for in the obama era is not torturing people, but rather killing them. On the same day that president obama signed that executive order banning torture a couple of days into his first term, he also signed this executive order to close guantanamo. Now, of course, four years later, guantanamo is not closed, even though that was an almost first day priority for president obama. He still says he would like to close guantanamo, just as george w. Bush said he wanted to close guantanamo. We have congress to thank for the fact that its still open. Congress has blocked the president s options for closing that offshore prison. But notice also that not a single new terrorism suspect, not a single new prisoner has been added to guantanamo since president obama has been in office. People have left by a number of different means, but nobody knew has shown up since barack obama was sworn in as president. We have not been shipping people to guantanamo, even though the president has not been able to close it. We have not been shipping terrorism suspects anywhere, really. Mostly because we havent been capturing them mostly. Weve been doing Something Else. Since 2002, targeted killings, targeted missile strikes have killed as many as 4700 people, mostly in pakistan. The highest targeted killing not by a drone, but by a navy s. E. A. L. Team was of course the killing of Osama Bin Laden in his compound in pakistan. The highest professional drone strike killing was this guy, anwar al awlaki. He was born in new mexico and killed in yemen. But between those very high profile killings, there have been dozens and dozens, ultimately hundreds of drone strikes under president obama, most of them mostly unnoticed in the news. Tonight monday of president obamas inauguration, the first day president obama outlined this wide ranging liberal agenda for his second term, that same day there was a drone strike in yemen. And that drone strike on Inauguration Day followed drone strikes in yemen on both days of the weekend that preceded Inauguration Day. So we had drone strikes on saturday and on sunday and on monday, the monday the president was sworn in. It doesnt really make the news. One of the most unusual things about drone strikes for us as citizens in a country that does this is that for so long our country would not admit that we did them, even when we all knew that we did. That was the case. That did not change officially until april of last year. April 2012. And the person the administration put forth to do that, to admit that policy for the first time publicly was john brennan. So let me say it as simply as i can. Yes, in full accordance with the law and in order to prevent terrorist attacks on the United States and to save american lives, the United States government conducts targeted strikes against specific al qaeda terrorists, sometimes using remotely piloted aircraft often referred to publicly as drones. And im here today because president obama has instructed us to be more open with the American People about these efforts. Why exactly the Obama Administration thinks these strikes are legal. They say, let me say as simply as i can, in full accordance with the law, the United States government conducted targeted strikes. In full accordance with the law. We know that they do think its legal. But they wont say why they think its legal. The closest we have come to learning about how the Obama Administration justifies drone strikes is this. In the fall of 2011, New York Times reporter Charlie Savidge wrote this story. This is about a week after awlaki was killed. The story describes a super secret 50page memo written by an office within the Justice Department that effectively serves as the obamas administrations legal justification for why they think its okay to kill an american citizen without a trial. Now the New York Times did not actually get to see this memo. They did not publish the memo, nor did they quote from it directly. The momentum mow was described to the reporter by anonymous sources. And thats when things got really weird. Because after the times reported on the existence of the memo, the times reporter who wrote that story and another times report and the times itself and the aclu and other people tried to get the Obama Administration to release this memo. Well, somebody from the administration who has high enough clearance to read it is willing to talk to a reporter about it. Please, can we see it . Everybody filed freedom of information requests. None of that worked. The freedom of information requests were denied. A and the government refused to even acknowledge that the memo existed. The Obama Administration and the Justice Department has refused to acknowledge if it exists. Or should i say its existence or lack thereof is classified. But the times did report on its existence back in october 2011. And they filed their lawsuit back in 2011. And members of congress have also asked the Obama Administration to please release this memo. We know you think its legal. Why do you think its legal . The closest anybody ever came to getting the attorney general to admit that this memo in fact exists was this very, very awkward moment caught on tape during a routine Budget Hearing back in march of 2012. I still want to see the office of Legal Counsel memorandum. And i would urge you to keep working on that. I realize its a matter of some debate within the administration. That would be true. Can i say that it would be true that there is debate about the hmmm. Just last month, a federal judge named Colleen Mcmahon ruled on the lawsuit to release this memo. So they had filed a freedom of information request. They said no. They said okay, its no longer a request. Were suing you, demanding you release this memo, and Colleen Mcmahon was the judge who received that lawsuit. And she ruled in the governments favor. She ruled that the government could keep it secret. The government could keep secret their secret justification for killing a u. S. Citizen without trial. But what was amazing about this trial is the judge was so vocally unhappy about having to issue the ruling. Look at what she said. Quote, i can find no way around the thicket of laws and precedents that effectively allow the executive branch of our government to proclaim as perfectly lawful certain actions that seem on their face incompatible with our constitution and laws while keeping the reasons for their conclusion a secret. Quote, the alice in wonderland nature of this pronouncement is not lost on me. She added that she was omping in a Legal Environment that amounted to a veritable catch22. John brennan faces his confirmation hearing to be the head of the cia on thursday this week. He will face questions from senators on the Senate Intelligence committee who will presumably ask him about his time in the cia of yore under george w. Bush and his time as the face of the Drone Program under president barack obama. One of the senators who sits on the Intelligence Committee is going to get a chance to question john brennan is oregon Democrat John wyden, who is a bit of a contrarian on the issues. He recently wrote a letter to john brennan asking for answers of his own about targeted killing and why its justified and how its justified. The questions themselves are so basic that they are almost more telling than some of the answers they could but probably wont receive. Questions like, for example, how much evidence does the president need to determine that a particular american can be lawfully killed . Also, this is one that sticks with me, does the president have to provide individual americans with the opportunity to surrender before killing them . Sand are there any geographic limit tagtss on the intelligence communitys authority to use lethal force against americans. Including can intelligence agencies kill people under this authority in the United States. Could the cia or any other Intelligence Agency come kill you if the appropriate highranking official in the Obama Administration, say president obama, decided that you were affiliated with al qaeda, and you were a threat, and you might act eminently to endanger their nation. Could you then be legally killed as you lay in your bed . We may see on thursday how many of those questions john brennan will answer. But tonight, four days ahead of that hearing, nbc news, Michael Isikoff has obtained a document that is closer than we have ever gotten that supposedly justifies this, the memo that may show the justification for the American Government killing american citizens. Tonight we have exclusive reporting. Joining us is National Investigative correspondent Michael Isikoff. Michael, thank you for being here. Good to be with you, rachel. Everybody has been looking for this memo. You have not the memo, but a white paper based on the memo. Does it tell us anything that we did not know before about how the government justifies targeted killings of americans . Yes. In short, it does. It provides detail. It fleshes out some of the arguments that have been made publicly, and in ways that in some instances contrast with what has been said publicly. Now, to be fair, attorney general holder gave a speech last march where he laid out the Administration Case for targeted killing of americans. He gave a threepart test if there is an eminent threat of a violent attack against americans, if capture is not feasible, and if the attack is carried out, if the strike is carried out in accordance with law of war principles. Well, lets take that first one first. Eminent threat of violent attack. Thats the way holder defined it. When you look at this 16page memo, which ive obtained, which is a further legal justification, you see that that actually they refer to what they call a broader concept of eminence than direct active intelligence of a plot against the u. S. In fact, it explicitly states that eminence does not mean that the United States has to have clear evidence that a specific attack on u. S. Persons or interests is under way. If the u. S. Believes that this the target has in the past been involved in such violent activities, and the target has not renounced such activities, it can be assumed that they are an eminent threat now, and that that would justify an attack. Now, again, remember, were talking about targeted killings of americans. Were talking about making decisions based on secret intelligence. And we see in this memo that some of the definitions are a bit more elastic and open to interpretation than the administration has publicly let on. Mike, on the three part, so it has to be eminent risk. And you just described the broader concept of eminence, which is the phrase in there. Yes. And that there cant be a capture that were killing somebody because they cant be captured. There is also an elaboration on that which it seems to me seems to be quite a wide definition. Im fascinated by the fact that we dont really capture terrorist suspects in yemen and somali and pakistan and these other places where we know drones, american drone strikes have killed people. People get killed there. They dont get captured. The definition for why a capture is impractical always seems to be very, very why. Exactly. What the memo says is that there are relevant factors that could be considered, including whether they would be an undue ris