Senator: White House Providing Us Memos to Justify Drone Use

U.S. Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism John Brennan, nominated by U.S. President Barack Obama to be the next Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, testifies before the Senate Intelligence Committee February 7, 2013 in Washington, DC. (Photo: Getty Images)

Editor's note: TheBlaze's Billy Hallowell has published a follow-up post with stunning revelations on the U.S. drone program obtained by Senator Rand Paul (R-KY).

Click here to read the entire story.

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(TheBlaze/AP) -- The Senate Intelligence Committee is scheduled to vote on President Barack Obama's pick to lead the CIA after weeks of wrangling with the White House over access to top-secret information about the use of lethal drone strikes against terror suspects, and the attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya.

On Tuesday, Feinstein announced that the White House is providing the panel with all of the top-secret Justice Department memos that justify the use of lethal drone strikes against terror suspects-- including American citizens.

But Glenn Beck said on his radio program Tuesday that Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) could break previously-unheard information about the American drone program later in the day.

Beck said of the potential announcement: "If this is true, which Rand says it is, I think -- maybe the biggest story in our lifetime?"

Neither gave specifics about what that information might be.

Brennan so far has escaped the harsh treatment that former Sen. Chuck Hagel, even though Brennan is one of Obama's most important national security aides and the White House official who oversees the drone program.

Brennan also served as a senior CIA official during President George W. Bush's administration when waterboarding and other forms of "enhanced interrogation" and detention practices were adopted. Brennan has publicly denounced the use of these tactics, but the cloud hasn't gone completely away.

Brennan's stance on waterboarding and torture is inconsistent, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., has said. Although Brennan has decried these methods, he also has said they saved lives, according to McCain, who said he is awaiting an explanation from Brennan. McCain and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., are also leading the charge for the Benghazi records.

"All we want is the answers," McCain said Monday. "I'm not threatening anything. I just think we deserve the answers."

Former Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., who spent eight years on the House Intelligence Committee, said she expects Brennan to be confirmed by a comfortable margin. Senate Republicans took Hagel's nomination personally, she said, and they're unlikely to take a similar approach with Brennan.

"I don't think they're going to try the same play twice and really seriously wound Obama's national security team at a time when it's very important that we project strength," said Harman, president of the Wilson Center in Washington.

Brennan vigorously defended the use of drone strikes during his confirmation hearing. He declined to say whether he believes waterboarding, which simulates drowning, amounted to torture. But he called the practice "reprehensible" and said it should never be done again. Obama ordered waterboarding banned shortly after taking office.

Drone strikes are employed only as a "last resort," Brennan told the committee. But he also said he had no qualms about going after U.S.-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in September 2011. A drone strike in Yemen killed al-Awlaki and Samir Khan, both U.S. citizens. A drone strike two weeks later killed al-Awlaki's 16-year-old son, a Denver native.

Graham, one of Hagel's most acerbic critics, said last month that the Obama administration deserved an "A-plus" for its drone program and he rejected an idea floated by Feinstein and other senators to establish a special court system to regulate drone strikes.

"I'm 100 percent behind the administration," Graham said. "I think their program has been legal, ethical and wise."

But Graham, along with McCain, said the failure to turn over the Benghazi records is a dealbreaker. Graham said Sunday on CBS' "Face the Nation" that he and McCain "are hell-bent on making sure the American people understand this debacle called Benghazi."

Brennan spent 25 years at the CIA before moving in 2003 from his job as deputy executive director of the agency to run the Terrorist Threat Integration Center. He later worked as interim director of the center's successor organization, the National Counterterrorism Center.

When Bush's second term began in 2005, Brennan left government to work for a company that provides counterterror analysis to federal agencies. After Obama took office in 2009, he returned to the federal payroll as the president's top counterterrorism adviser in the White House.

If confirmed by the full Senate, Brennan would replace Michael Morell, the CIA's deputy director who has been acting director since David Petraeus resigned in November after acknowledging an affair with his biographer.

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Associated Press writer Donna Cassata contributed to this report.