'BradCast' 1/7/2020 (Guest: National security law expert Karen J. Greenberg)
b"On today's 'BradCast':\\xa0 The world remains on edge in the wake of Donald Trump's targeted assassination of Iran's top military general Qassem Soleimani. U.S. Customs officials are reportedly detaining Iranian-American citizens for extended questioning at the border. Trump officials are walking back Trump's threats of war crimes against Iran, should they retaliate, but have presented no evidence of an "imminent attack" to justify the killing. Iran's Foreign Minister characterized the assassination of Soleimani as "state terrorism". National security and international law expert KAREN J. GREENBERG, Director of the Center on National Security at Fordham University School of Law, explains how Pres. Ford's Executive Order, the War Powers Act of 1973 (meant to constrain Presidents from acts of war without approval by Congress), and the Authorizations for Use of Military force adopted by Congress after 9/11 and again before our invasion of Iraq, have all now been stretched to the point of near meaninglessness. Until Donald Trump, no U.S. president had broadened the definition of 'targeted killings' to include the assassination of a state official, and the U.S. has pushed the boundaries of Geneva Convention restrictions against war crimes to fit its defensive/aggressive needs of the moment, with as little enforcement by international agencies as Congress has brought against U.S. Presidents from both major parties at home for violations of domestic laws and Constitutional mandates. Also today: Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell says he has the votes necessary to Trump's Senate impeachment trial forward without new witnesses or withheld documents. Plus Desi Doyen has our latest 'Green News Report.'"