“’If indeed the strike was taken to disrupt an imminent threat to U.S. persons — and that picture seems to be getting murkier by the minute — the case should be made to Congress and to the public, consistent with national security,’ said Lisa Monaco, a former senior F.B.I. official and homeland security adviser to President Barack Obama. ‘Failure to do so hurts our credibility and deterrence going forward.’
“Intelligence officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive data collection, have said there was no single definitive piece of information…”