Sen. Patrick Leahy said Wednesday he’s considering reversing course and voting against confirming John Brennan to lead the Central Intelligence Agency.

The Senate Judiciary Committee chairman said he’d do so to protest the Obama administration’s continued unwillingness to provide his committee access to top secret legal memos justifying the use of drone strikes against American citizens abroad.

“I may cast a vote that would be a shot across the bow,” Leahy told Seven Days Wednesday afternoon. 

The move would be a dramatic reversal for Leahy, who said in January that he’d back Brennan’s confirmation. It comes as a small group of Republican senators, led by Kentucky’s Rand Paul, spent the afternoon filibustering consideration of Brennan’s confirmation.

Asked whether he’d informed the White House of his change of heart, Leahy said he hadn’t.

“I’ll probably let them figure it out,” he said.

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Paul Heintz was part of the Seven Days news team from 2012 to 2020. He served as political editor and wrote the "Fair Game" political column before becoming a staff writer.

One reply on “Citing Drone Memos, Leahy Threatens to Oppose Brennan as CIA Director”

  1. I saw Paul Heintz on cspan3 walking into the room as the drone protesters were being escorted out. Proving Paul was actually working on his trip.

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