a credibility and tattered when the obama administration entered office. in the constitutional paradigms, the definition of who can be necessarilynot use these law of war determinations and does not judge whether that person is a member of the larger entity with whom you are engaged in the armed conflict. instead it simply parses information about that poseddual aunt the threat by that individual. you will notice that while that is potentially pernicious in some ways, it at the same time begins assuming an extraordinarily high standard of intelligence and evidence about particular individuals that is really attainable in practice. level, that is what evidence and circumstances you need, we have a great deal of experience and a lot of people who are well-trained on the application of the dph standard on enemy combatants, as a result of 15 years of warfare. this is now a standard that a lot of people understand and know how to apply and they know how to second-guess mistake and applications of it. we have had a lot of trial and error with this. we have some

hurricane sandy, the continuing tropical [bleep] storm that is rocking the obama administration. yesterday press secretary jay carney, like an intrepid weather channel anchor, stood and let the wind and rain pummel him for our entertainment purposes. >> on the i.r.s., did the president believe that they're being truthful? does he think that the leadership there needs to change? >> part of it is fact. it's not an if anymore. it's fact. >> that's your opinion, all right. >> there have been twice as many prosecutions as all previous administrations combined. >> is there a siege mentality back on the west wing right now. >> absolutely not. jon: siege mentality. why would you say that? is it the vat of boiling oil in the moat? is that why you say that. the vat of boiling oil. i don't know. who knows. you know what? fair is fair. it is a good week for conservatives. angry rhetoric, a level of upset about the president for once seems somewhat appropriate. >> it cuts to this administration's core credibility. it cuts to its trust. >> it's absolutely appalling. this is disturbing. just sh

the entire obama administration at times, seems to be hunk erring downberring down behind a stonewall. it has been now to wall off the irs, frustrating for democrats as well as republican congressmen. here is democrat steven lynch of massachusets. >> if this committee is prevented by obstruct or refusal to answer, the questions that we need to get to the bottom of this, you will leave us no alternative but to ask for the appointment of a special prosecutor, there will be hell to pay if that is the route we choose to go down. lou: weekly stanc standard. prior to joining the irs, learner of head of the enforcement officer at the federal elect commission, the christian coalition accuses the fec in late '90s of conducting an uncalled for investigation, into issues advocacy, that cost the coalition hundreds of thousands to defend the case was dropped. now we know why president obama has scheduled what his administration is styling as a major national security -- tomorrow, obama administration acknowledging for first time today, that 4 american citizens have been killed in drone strikes sin

the imperial presidency it's an imperial mentality that assumes that somehow it is up to the obama administration to decide who rules syria i mean to say that our son was going to somehow it's as if it's up to obama up to cameron or orms to decide whether assad goes on out that's that's essentially presence and now you know they may they may be differences on this or that policy but the mentality where it somehow it's the. leading western powers that get to decide who rules where. you know what weapons anybody can have that's that that's the imperial mentality and that will leads inevitably towards we had. a war in libya. i think that there's a pretty good chance that the geneva meeting will end in failure i mean the americans are doing everything they can to sabotage it and the war will the current conflict going to go on and you know some point the obama administration will decide well we really feel he managed to and reasons we really have to intervene if you know michael cera bipartisan foreign policy in the united states now because it does seems like there's so much continuity from bush. we

the obama administration has confirmed the u.s. man in yemen yemen.in they also confirmed the death of son. -- his but the administration said those strikes were accidental, saying all three were not specifically targeted. today, we are going to look at the new book "dirty wars" written by jeremy scahill, former democracy now producer and now writes with the correspondence as well. and italled "dirty wars" is based on u.s. operations in somalia, yemen, and afghanistan. the majors -- the major focus is the u.s. assassination of these two who were killed in a u.s. aug strike -- drone strike week apart. i had the opportunity to interview jeremy scahill about his book when we were here in new york. i asked him to start with who i anwar al-awlaki is. >> two of

to two or to put on this this and the obama administrationto put on this basically propagate the pretense that missiles from a drone can't tell the difference between a terrorist or not terrorist it's just a law now yemeni activist faria almost leni actually recently testified on the hill about the aftereffects of the u.s. drone strike in yemen so this is what he said no however when they think of america they think of that that they feel from the drones that hoover over their heads that the two fired missiles at any time what the violent militants had to brief us liefeld to achieve one drone strike accomplished in and distant it is now and can sound good against americans. this is not an isolated and in assistance the drone strikes of the face of america too many images so is it possible that these drone strikes are actually helping out the insurgent. yes of course i mean the way he said this is mostly nice i said that's true that the drones are now the face of america there was a protest in the middle east somewhere i don't know whether it

those reports after these messages. >> factor follow up segment tonight, the obama administration has indicted six federal employees for lacking classified information, that's more than any other administration. what exactly is going on? joining us from washington is that correct zad and attorney who often represents federal employees who get caught up in this kind of stuff. we have covert prafingses around the world terror. if the press finds out about them. they could die. i think we know about that is the obama administration doing anything wrong here by upping the prosecutions of the leakers? >> no. not necessarily. leaks need to be prosecuted as you said my clients are often covert intelligence officers. military members and a leak could actually cause them harm what's different since the clinton administration and bush administration deplored leaks and wanted to go after many of these started in the bush administration. what's changed is the evidence. this administration has had access to the evidence mostly electronic emails, phone records like with the a.p. issuance of a subpo

. >> meanwhile development in syria putting new pressure on obama administration. european union has lifted arms embargo as new reports of chemical weapon use by assad regime emerge. a u.s. senator is freelancing with we rebel leaders over the memorial day weekend, we turn to fox news chief white house correspondent ed henry. >> reporter: obama administration tried to put the best face on e.u.'s decision to end its arms open barringo on syria. >> it sends a message to assad regime that support for opposition will increase. >> reporter: john mccain kept the heat on the white house after a secret memorial d to syria, tweeting it was an opinion visit with -- important visit with brave fighters in syria. with military analysts declaring pressure is building to presiddnt obama to arm the rebels, after mccain's high profile visit. >> the second thing is a bit of a poke in the eye to the obama administration. by saying, look, i am here, imwilling to support the army of the rubbles, time to -- rebels time to get onboard. >> reporter: otter expert note some rebels are tied

you see, what you've done to the obama administration. their complaints had some legitimacy.lthough mr. doocy i can go without knowing what your o-face is. ( applause ) you know, it's been a very tough week for the white house. you know, it wasn't just the intensity of the criticism. it wasn't just the intensity of the criticism of the white house that seemed appropriate but at times the content of the criticism. >> now they're saying that the senior leadership at the i.r.s., i didn't know anything about it on the heels of hillary clinton saying i didn't know anything about those extra requests for security in benghazi libya. who knows something about anything that matters? is there anybody who is minding the shop? >> jon: that's what i was saying yesterday. you know, meg and kelly, we've had our differences. maybe it's time we do a show together. call it fox and frenemy. beauty and the bris. what? i'm sorry. i'm being told this is going to be called regis and kelly. all right. it has gotten so bad for the administration, some on the right were almost offering more sympatheti

designed to intimidate people who may come forward in the future to tell stories that the obama administration would not like to hear. we're going to follow you and if you talk to a reporter we'll going to know about it. probably an effort to intimidate people in the administration more than anything else. martha: yeah. what do you think would have been the right steps for them to take? certainly we've seen them reporters to turn over their sources before. would that have been the appropriate first step? >> there are guidelines in the department of justice how you do these things and from what i understand they went to the last option first. and again, this is a pretty obvious effort to me to intimidate people within the administration that we're watching you. we're going to watch who you talk to. this is where congress has oversight function and i hope we'll perform it. >> let's talk about the sick issue, which really goes to the honesty and integrity of our taxation system in the united states of america. which is a pretty important sacrosanct thing. tough feel you're on a level playing fiel

. >> reporter: obama administration tried to put the be face on e.'s decision to end its arms open barringo on syria. >>t sends a message to assad regime that support for oppositi will increase. >> reporter: john mccain kept the heat on the white house after aecret memorial day trip to syria, tweeting it was an opinion visit with -- important visit with brave fighters in ria. with military analysts declaring pressure is building to presiddnt obama to arm the rebels, after mccain's high profile vis. >> the second thing is a bit of a poke in the eye to the obama administration. by saying, look, i am here, imwilling to support the army of the rubbles, time to -- rebels time to get onboaoard >> reporter: otter expert ne some rebels a tied to al qaeda and mccain seems too eager to to war. >> we can't let go of afghanistan, now he wants to us actively support syrian rebels. >> reporter: john kery is pushing for an early june coerence in geneva. >> we want to make this conference happen, with many other countries. >> reporter: russia also is working against

phones that still leaves the obama administration right in the face obama has defended those subpoenas a phone records while holder tries to shield himself from the scandal more of the drama unfolding here in d.c. even after the u.s. invasion of iraq the country still faces continuous violence of the country is plagued with insurgent bombings that are taking their toll on infrastructure a look at the results of the war from inside iraq just ahead. a group of russian developers have created a new social network but what's so special about it all how about communicating with other people even if you don't speak the same language more on the network that weakens the language barrier later in the show. it's friday may seventeenth four pm in washington d.c. i'm margaret how well you're watching our t.v. . starting up this hour the latest surrounding the department of justice's investigation in the source of alleged national security leaks be of the associated press now yesterday president obama defended the actions alluding to the possibility the information was revealed with an a.p. story

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, resulting in the death of a man in pakistan, so four years later, the obama administration is now finding some of the same charges that were leveled against the bush administration. a couple of years ago i wrote in "the post," called "will drone strikes become obama's guantanamo?" at the time i wrote that, i did not really think that drone strikes could have become obama's guantanamo. i think this is a real problem for them. withhave been grappling the issue through a number of officials -- john brennan, harold koh. others have issued a series of speeches generally explaining the program, the problem is -- and this is my real point here -- no other country in the world has at least publicly agreed with the legality of our drone program. that is not a good place for the united states to be. it may well be that there are a handful who are cooperating with us that believe it is legal or they would not be cooperating. but right now the united states is isolated as the obama administration has launched more than 300 drone strikes in four different countries, killing more than 3000 people, and

above it all, this isn't the obama administration, the irs is independent. that is absolutely false. if president obama had the ability to fire the acting irs commissioner, that means that's a person in the obama administration. this is an obama scandal. this is an obama scandal. >> one sec. we're getting a bit confused about chronology. let's continue. nancy pelosi spoke to the republicans' incredible expanding scandal and its purposes. i'd like you to listen to this. >> they will use these as evasions of what the american people want us to do here. they want us to create jobs. now, if you're a pearty in congress and you have no intention of creating jobs, you will change the subject. so i think this is much about forcing their anti-government ideology. >> joy, your reaction to nancy pelosi. she says it's evasion and undermining. >> keep in mind today i think we had our 38th vote in the house on repealing obama care. >> we're coming to that very soon. >> we've seen what's happening, i think, in the house of representatives, is they'

we're seeing right now i mean if if this is a matter of policy and it's widely noted that the obama administration has prosecuted more whistleblowers than every other president previous american presidential administration combined so what what. for example the new yorker has suggested that we're no longer talking about an obama administration war on whistleblowers but an obama administration war on journalism to that extent the new yorker interesting lee has introduced a platform called strongbox which which is an encrypted digital area in which information can be passed to the new yorker anonymously this guarantees the anonymity of whistleblowers or people who people who would leak information it was developed by amongst others by the late hour and schwartz the. first amendment activists who committed suicide while being prosecuted for dumping what were previously private files that belonged i believe to the massachusetts institute of technology was what's behind this but one of the knock on effects of perhaps one of the unintended knock on effects of strong box is that it may serve to protect j

anything that would keep the scandals drags out, which is why obama administration circumstance poses a look at a special prosecutor. with me next, robert a. what i remember most about robert, no show from you, no hey, look at me. you deliberately held back, when it came to looking at whitewater for example, you said there was no there, there. right? >> right, because it comes with the credibility of a full investigation to be able to say, we have looked at it carefully, it takes courage to say, but we're not going to go forward, no charges will be brought. >> but you did leave out something that also had come to your attention that others seized on after. >> you right, sure. neil: you didn't think that was jermaine that is the affair part of it that president clinton. >> that was the more complicated question whether which was a crimit was a crimecommitted. neil: but let me step back. senator john mccain was saying, we need at least a special panel to investigate benghazi, call everyone back, hill clinton as well and reexamine, requestion. that is one step sh shy of a special prosecu

democrats as well as republicans are criticizing the conduct of the obama administration.enate judiciary committee chairman, a democrat, saying, quote, i'm very troubled by the allegations and want to hear the government's explanation. the top democrat in congress, senate majority leader, senator harry reid breaking with the obama administration an offering this harsh assessment of what many see as a clear violation of the first amendment. >> i have trouble defending what the justice department did in going after, looking at the ap. you know, i really believe in the first amendment. it's one of the great things we have as a country, and i don't know who did it or why it was donings but it's unexcusable. there's no way to justify it. lou: president obama's public calendar cleared today after attending three fund raisers last night. breaking news this evening as fox obtained the treasury inspect general's report on the division of tax exempt government entities. the inspector general late today contradicted districter warner who said fraid that the irs had fixed the problems

>> i think this is a real debacle for the obama administration. would have drawn the red line the president drew, but having drawn it so emphatically and then failing to follow through on it, i think he has impaired his credibility. worse and i think he has impaired our country's credibility. and the standard that he is now putting of having a u.n. investigation inside syria verify what actually happened ideas that will never take place. the investigators will not get in for years, if ever. the situation remains completely chaotic. the israelis have now acted in their own self-defense, not necessarily against the chemical weapons but to make sure some missiles did not get to hezbollah. the united states just sits on the sidelines. lou: your thoughts? >> well, it's hard to tell who used chemical weapons. in fact, if that did happen. insurgents could have captured chemical weapons and use them in some small way. but it's probable that the syrian army actually controls all the chemical weapons, and if it was used it would have been used by them. what

there is that word "chilling" again, but we are talking about the obama administration and someone whointo office with promises of a more transparent administration. >> we are talking about a constitutional lawyer who came in -- who did in the senate and still does support a shield law to protect reporters from prosecution when they received classified information, and yet i think the president has been hemmed in on the one side by republicans looking for any excuse to paint any democrat soft on the war on terror, and the urgencies of what information that i will never be privilege xwr to, what is facing him and the administration every single day in terms of threats. i'm not at all excusing the basic sort of lack of nod just the bully pulpit, but some basic measures that he could do to have moved the agenda forward, the agenda he carried in the senate up until he became a candidate for president, then i think we could see some movement on that. i'm really glad we're talking about. we must see the closing of guantanamo. >> i think it's important every once in a while to pull back and r

the obama administration in turmoil. the scandal claims its first victim. >> today, secretary lew took the first step by requesting and accepting the resignation of the acting commissioner of the irs. >> this on the same day the white house released nearly 100 pages of benghazi e-mails. donald rumsfeld says they're still trying to pass the buck. he's on the grill with me tonight live. >>> plus, horrifying revelations of abuse and terror. amanda berry, gina dejesus, michelle knight hidden in the van in the garage when he had visitors. beaten with hand weights. ariel castro's common law wife abused the same way. gina and michelle have spoken by phone. and after all these years in captivity, one of the girls has discovered what an iphone is. >>> also tonight, law and disorder. on the docket, jodi arias fighting for her life. >> the last thing that mr. alexander felt was this knife, this woman, and this blade coming towards him. >> the jury finds she was extremely cruel. that means she is eligible for the death penalty. the

course it doesn't prosecuted itself this is the nature of investigative reporting that the obama administration is going after obama ran in two thousand and eight and to a certain degree in two thousand and twelve on him playing at form that he would make government more transparent but instead he is making government more opaque i mean while those the u.s. government's apparent war on whistleblowers gathers pace for me to outlets and taking steps to shield the sources and new york has now left the system that allows people to anonymous piece of the documents and messages to the magazine i think we're in a not happy to have. one of america's oldest and most prestigious news publications is pulling up page from wiki leaks and creating a platform for whistleblowers and sources to anonymously leak information the new yorker magazine has launched a strongbox and open source dropbox that allows people to send messages and leak information without their identities ever being revealed now the forebear reportedly uses multiple laptop thumb drives the rich and poor the feds and that the new yorker ever

part of the story here is that the obama administration has been particularly aggressive in trying tock down leaks. more so than any other administration. >> that's correct. they've been incredibly aggressive. they prosecuted -- they brought six leak prosecutions which is more than -- far more than the bush administration. they have -- you know, they have been very aggressive in going after certain whistle-blowers and they have been very aggressive in seeking sources to the news media on specific leaks. now, in other instances, for instance the killing of osama bin laden, a lot of classified information about that mission has gotten out to the press. the obama administration hasn't targeted any leakers for that. they seem to target leakers when there are unsanctioned leaks things the government did not want out there or wouldn't be happier out there. this is one instance where the government did not want the a.p. to publish this information and the a.p. suggested that they only did so because the plot was over and the government was going to announce it publicly, anyway. so they made

in other words, the obama administration will henceforth be disallowed from buying anymore ammunition than the bush administration did. how terrifying would it be if the first black president bought more bullets than the previous white president? we have to stop that from happening, america. today, the other republican senator from oklahoma, senator tom coburn, withdrew at the last minute his proposed legislation that the administration is buying up all the ammo. senator coburn's legislation would have created a federal registry for federally owned guns and ammunition. it's a federal registry, but only for the guns and ammo owned by the federal government. when senator coburn started getting asked why exactly he wants to start tracking guns and ammo, senator coburn withdrew the legislation today showing it was, quote, a show of goodwill. even if it's a seemingly political event, the political reaction on the right, you can see it at work, goes very quickly to the question of whether it could possibly be an obama administration conspiracy. it comes with the territory these days. it's b

the obama administration has formally acknowledged u.s. drone strikes killed four americans in yemen and pakistan. in a letter to congress, attorney general eric holder confirm the u.s. deliberately killed a militant cleric anwar al awlaki in yemen in 2011. he also acknowledged the deaths of his 16-year-old son, abdulrahman, and his elder aid samir khan in yemen as well as the death of jude kenan mohammed in pakistan. upholder suggested those strikes or accidental, saying all three were not specifically targeted. mohammed's killing had previously been unknown and of wednesday he was still on the fbi's most wanted list. holders letter was revealed on the eve of today's major counterterrorism address from president obama. the president is expected to announce a policy limiting targeted killing outside of four sons in places such as pakistan, yemen, and somalia and also expected to endorse using the same standards for attacking foreign suspects now used for targeting american citizens. the move could in the so-called signature strikes that tr

host: what would you like to see congress and the obama administration do regarding tibet? ngress has done a lot for the tibetan people, as well as different administrations, including the obama administration, for which we are very grateful to the government and to the people of america. , given theime now vicious cycle of depression, resistance. the congress and the u.s. government should send a clear message and a strong message to the chinese government that we have to find a peaceful solution to the issue of tibet through dialogue. and then from that dialogue, between the chinese government and the tibetan representatives, you know, from 2002 to 2010 there were nine rounds of dialogue between chinese ,epresentatives and tibetans but there has not been any since 2010, so it has been more than three years. not from lack of effort from our part. we are willing to engage in dialogue any time and anywhere to solve the issue of tibet. stories about china in the newspapers. the front page of "the washington post" says a frustrated chinese are trying their luck at president oba

well it's on the record that the obama administration has prosecuted more whistleblowers than all other presidential administrations combined but interesting enough coming from the new yorker is that they've introduced a digitally encrypted environment they're taking steps to protect their sources it's called strong box. the code itself was developed by digital first amendment activist or code developed by r. and schwartz the late hour and schwartz he killed himself while under prosecution for releasing files from dumping files in public domain that were previously owned by the mit if i'm not mistaken schwartz worked with others to create this digitally encrypted environment in which. to which information could be enormously inserted yeah i think it will be the most important factor there yeah i guess the idea here was that they would guarantee anonymity to whistleblowers into sources but. the other side of that now is that this is an environment like that may serve to guarantee an immunity to journalists who are facing an absolutely unprecedented threat in the history of american media

. >> as pressure mounts on the obama administration, we will speak to a man who was at the center of another fight over press freedom, 40 years ago james goodale from the new york times when the nixon administration attempted to block the paper's publication of the pentagon papers, the secret history of the vietnam war, leaked by daniel ellsberg. then, environmental activist tim dechristopher recently released from prison joins us in the studio. >> there are a lot of things we have tried, most of which have not worked, especially on climate change, on trying to get our government to do something about climate change. mostly, we need people taking action. nobody can really tell you what that action should be. >> first, we turn to a shocking senate hearing for the pentagon declared the entire world is a battlefield and the president can send troops anywhere without new congressional authorization. >> i have only been here five months, but this is the most astounding disturbing hearing i have been 2 cents i have been here. you essentially have rewritten the constitution here today. >> al

it's called "war on whistle blowers" and takes a critical look at the obama administration's role in pursuing those who decide to go public with sensitive information. this impacts not only the whistle blowers but the journalists covering the story. >> reporter: the impact of this administration's aggressiveness in the national security arena has had a inextraordinary chilling effect. the number of people who have indicated to us they wish they could talk but they can't because they are so afraid of what could happen to them is a terrible thing for our democracy. >> we're joined now by the producer and the director of the film "robert greenwall" also the president and founder of brave new foundation. robert, thanks so much for being here. what's your reaction to the justice department obtaining phone records of associated press journalists? were you surprised? >> well, i was angry, initially, and, unfortunately, the last year of research we've done on war on whistle blowers, this is a systemic, continuing problem. it's not a one off and it's not an accident, sadly. it has been policy

whistleblowers they're all situations in which the administration has accused someone of disclosing classified information and that language that you heard president obama using about the danger to lives they've used that in almost every single case and in the thomas drake case the n.s.a. whistleblower for example it turned out not to be true at all the administration or the prosecutor in that case said that he put soldiers' lives in danger when in fact the information that he was accused of retaining turned out not to be even properly classified much less in danger in lives right at the same time the you know you could conceive of an instance of a leak that would put lives in danger and you know. that's kind of what the president is talking about trying to strike this balance between those sort of leaks whether or not this leak or any leaks in the past have lived up to that kind of criteria but trying to strike that balance between leaks about sort of in a free media do you think that that's an issue that needs to be addressed here well i think the president's framing it wrong the difference really is between leaks and whistle blowing whistle blowing i