Drone investigation continues

>> the first reads of the morning. you may be breaking off to hear from president obama at the prayer breakfast. let's start with the first read. after years of secrecy, president obama ordered the justice department to release a classified memo detailing the legal justification for killing americans considered terrorists to two congressional committees . they will do so on a classified basis. the disclosure to congress happened on the eve of this afternoon's confirmation hearing for john brennan , the president's choice to be the next director of the cia . press secretary jay carney refused to acknowledge that the memo existed. he prepared for the senate intelligence and he refused to commit saying any decision would require interagent consultation. after nbc commented on the white paper that summarized the legal arguments and hoping to nip any congressional sustained criticism in the bud and delay brennan's confirmation, the president made the decision to have it be shown to members of the congress. he called the senator who has a one-man oversight, biden threatened to pull out the stops to get the memo and called the disclosure an important first step and said the heavy lifting of the process begins.

>> every american has the right to know when their government believes it's allowed to kill them. i don't think that as one person said, that is too much to ask. this idea that security and liberty are mutually exclusive and you can have or the other is something i reject.

>> critics accused the president of hypocrisy of classified memos on interrogation in 2009 . refusing and keeping the legal opinions secret. yesterday the white house justified the lack of transparency to pointing to speeches by officials on drone strikes over the past year into these comments. the president himself made on the daily show in october.

>> one of the things we have to do is put a legal architecture in place and we need congressional help to do that to make sure not only am i raeigned in, but any president is reigned in.

>> civil libertarian advocates say the white house move is not enough and the memo should be released to the general public .

>> if the administration will be claiming the authority to kill american citizens, it has an obligation to explain and defend the claim to the public.

>> the president has an unusual degree and republicans are lining up behind the president. from michael rogers .

>> this is a time-honored tradition the legal basis goes back many, many years when u.s. citizens would go and fight for foreign nations. if you join the enemy overseas, we will fight the enemy.

>> we will take a little bit of a pause here. this is an annual tradition. the president is speaking at a national prayer breakfast . we want to take you and hear his comments live.