From Huffingtonpost:
Until last week, the Obama administration's official position was that it had never technically acknowledged the existence of a memo from the Office of Legal Counsel laying out the legal framework for the targeted killing of an American citizen.
"The very fact of the existence or nonexistence of such documents is itself classified," the Justice Department wrote in a previous letter, despite wide discussion from members of the administration on the general principles of the targeted killing program.Even a broader document — a so-called "white paper" — that spelled out the less-specific legal basis for targeted killings was "protected by the deliberative process privilege" though it was turned over to select members of Congress, a Justice Department official wrote late last month to a reporter from The New York Times who had requested that document.But once the white paper was disclosed by Michael Isikoff of NBC News, the government had a change of heart.