FBI director: Have to check whether targeted killing rule is outside US only

By Catherine Herridge

Published March 07, 2012

FBI Director Robert Mueller on Wednesday said he would have to go back and check with the Department of Justice whether Attorney General Eric Holder's "three criteria" for the targeted killing of Americans also applied to Americans inside the U.S.

Pressed by House lawmakers about a recent speech in which Holder described the legal justification for assassination, Mueller, who was attending a hearing on his agency's budget, did not say without qualification that the three criteria could not be applied inside the U.S.

Related Stories
FBI offers $1 million reward for return of American last seen in Iran
Panetta pushes back on calls for U.S. military action in Syria
Suspicion rises between Western advisers, Afghans

"I have to go back. Uh, I'm not certain whether that was addressed or not," Mueller said when asked by Rep. Kevin Yoder, R-Kan., about a distinction between domestic and foreign targeting

Yoder followed up asking whether "from a historical perspective," the federal government has "the ability to kill a U.S. citizen on United States soil or just overseas."

"I'm going to defer that to others in the Department of Justice," Mueller replied.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012...#ixzz1oWnrDabR

"The time for war has not yet come, but it will come and that soon, and when it does come, my advice is to draw the sword and throw away the scabbard." Gen. T.J. Jackson, March 1861