Donald Trump is ordering the US military to murder civilians on the high seas. We know this is happening because he’s bragging about it. I just want to remind everyone of what the fatuous Chief Justice wrote in response to the dissents in the immunity case last year, in which they evoked the argument that Trump could order Seal Team Six to murder someone and would be completely immune from prosecution:
“The dissents’ positions in the end boil down to ignoring the Constitution’s separation of powers and the Court’s precedent and instead fear mongering on the basis of extreme hypotheticals about a future where the President ‘feels empowered to violate federal criminal law. The dissents overlook the more likely prospect of an Executive Branch that cannibalizes itself, with each successive President free to prosecute his predecessors, yet unable to boldly and fearlessly carry out his duties for fear that he may be next.”
It’s not an extreme hypothetical. It’s reality. And what the majority failed to understand because they were so exercised that Trump The Precious was a criminal who was being held to account for staging a coup, fraud and stealing classified documents was that they had opened the door to a president not only ordering malicious prosecutions against everyone but the previous president, but that he was actually exactly the kind of criminal who would order murders knowing that he was immune from prosecution as long as he was claiming, without evidence, that he was doing it for “national security.”
While he didn’t order Seal Team Six to murder someone, he did order U.S. Navy ships to do it, which I’m sure they did with the understanding that Trump would pardon everyone and would never himself have to face prosecution. It’s happening. And apparently, nobody cares.
Here’s the latest on the Venezuela murder operation:
U.S. military officials are drawing up options to target drug traffickers inside Venezuela, and strikes within that country’s borders could potentially begin in a matter of weeks, four sources told NBC News.
Striking inside Venezuela would be another escalation in the Trump administration’s military campaign against alleged drug targets and its stance toward Venezuela’s government.
[…]
Some Trump administration officials are disappointed that the United States’ military escalation does not appear to have weakened Maduro’s grip on power or prompted any significant response, the official familiar with the discussions said…
The official who is disappointed is Marco Rubio. This operation is his baby. He is dying to depose Maduro who has become his white whale. The fact that the world has not rallied to trump’s side and that Maduro hasn’t reacted to the provocation has made them hesitate to invade. But it looks like they’re prepared to escalate. And invasion is almost inevitable once they start blowing up civilians on the ground.
Trump is “prepared to use every element of American power to stop drugs from flooding into our country and to bring those responsible to justice,” the senior administration official said.
There has been no discussion of whether Venezuela is actually flooding the U.S. with drugs, much less whether it’s legal for the administration to just start killing people. It’s just happening, as the dissenting Justices all predicted it would.