John Podesta’s Targeted Strike on White House Secrecy

March 14 (Bloomberg) -- John Podesta, one of the mostinfluential policy advisers in the Democratic Party, has leveleda blistering attack on President Barack Obama for his refusal toprovide the legal rationale for drone strikes. The criticism issure to rattle the White House and congressional Democrats.

“In refusing to release to Congress the rules andjustification governing a program that has conducted nearly 400unmanned drone strikes and killed at least three Americans inthe past four years, President Obama is ignoring the system ofchecks and balances that has governed our country from itsearliest days,” Podesta writes in an op-ed in the WashingtonPost. “In keeping this information from the American people, heis undermining the nation’s ability to be a leader on the worldstage and is acting in opposition to the democratic principleswe hold most important.”