Nearly three years after an American drone strike in Yemen killed United States citizen Anwar Al-Awlaki, the official Department of Justice memorandum that justified the attack has finally been released.

A redacted version of the July 16, 2010 memo from the DOJ’s office of Legal Counsel to Attorney General Eric Holder was published on Monday this week, for the first time revealing the exact legal justification that the White House secretly relied on to authorize the done strike that killed Al-Awlaki, a suspected New Mexico-born Al-Qaeda official.

The 41-page memorandum was published along with the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruling from Tuesday in which it was ordered that the controversial document finally be disclosed. The memo itself was originally authored by David J. Barron, the acting assistant attorney general at the time it was given to Mr. Holder two months before a US drone fired a Hellfire missile to kill Al-Awlaki in the town of Al-Jawf Governorate, Yemen.

According to a cursory analysis by Reuters published moments after the memo’s release, the document shows that the Office of Legal Counsel at the DOJ believed Al-Awlaki could be killed given his suspected standing as an “operational leader” of an “enemy force,” and therefore could be targeted “as part of the United States' ongoing non-international armed conflict with Al-Qaeda.” ...

Part VI explains why the contemplated killing would not violate the Fourth or Fifth Amendments of the Constitution.