Credibility has a value Trump will never understand
The Donald Trump administration does not know who it is murdering on small boats in the Caribbean, Defense officials told lawmakers in a classified House briefing on Thursday. Military lawyers were removed before the briefing. Democrats were excluded from a similar Senate briefing the day before, Politico reports:
“[The department officials] said that they do not need to positively identify individuals on these vessels to do the strikes, they just need to prove a connection to a designated terrorist organization or affiliate,” said Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.). “When we tried to get more information, we did not get satisfactory answers.”
GOP lawmakers did not answer reporters’ questions.
To date, the U.S. has killed at least 61 alleged drug runners that we know of. Burned and mangled corpses missing limbs are washing ashore on Trinidad.
While White House officials have repeatedly referenced the threat posed by fentanyl being smuggled into the United States — it accounted for roughly 70 percent of overdose deaths nationwide in 2023, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse — officials at Thursday’s briefing said the boats hit so far were primarily transporting cocaine.
“They argued that cocaine is a facilitating drug of fentanyl, but that was not a satisfactory answer for most of us,” said Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.).
Last week the New York Times reported:
Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, over the weekend accused the United States of murdering a Colombian fisherman in an attack on a boat that the American authorities claimed had been carrying drugs. President Trump responded by halting aid to Colombia and saying that Mr. Petro, a leftist, had a “fresh mouth toward America.”
“Fresh mouth” is a phrase you haven’t heard since the 1960s. But then, consider the source: President Arrested Development.
The killings have spread fear across the Caribbean. Fishermen stay close to shore and fear working at night. Legal analysts believe the strikes in Trump’s self-proclaimed “war” against drug cartels (from one specific country, mind you) violate U.S. law and international law:
“The strikes are disturbing because they’re obviously extrajudicial strikes that are not supported by any legal framework whatsoever,” former attorney general Garvin Nicholas told The Washington Post. “It should not be that the government encourages extrajudicial killings.”
Digby on Monday referenced the “golden shield” that go-ahead rulings from the Office of Legal Counsel provide for such actions. A kind of advance pardon, they “insulate executive officials from future criminal liability through legal advice.” Readers will recall the infamous torture memos from the Bush II administration that blessed prisoner torture post-Sept. 11.
Playing devil’s advocate for a moment, in an actual war the military rarely has faces and names attached to the enemies it targets. But this is not an actual war. Trump invented it out of whole cloth. Perhaps he means to prosecute a real one of regime change against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Or perhaps he needs yet another distraction from the pending release of the Epstein files or inflation or his falling poll numbers. These boat strikes are simply murders.
Digby on Thursday posted about the creepy DHS spokesman video. The Washington Post found inaccurate and deceptive editing throughout the white nationalist propaganda videos DHS churns out. Trump has operated his entire life on the theory that you can fool some of the people all of the time, enough to rip them off, line his pockets, and get away with it. If they complain, he sues them into bankruptcy.
This supposed master dealmaker places a high value on the Trump brand. What’s striking is how little value he and his entire administration of lies sets on credibility, on trustworthiness. That’s a key, ephemeral element of any brand, i.e., “the brand you trust.” Trump must have skipped class to get laid the day they discussed that at Wharton.
The Trump administration is one you can’t trust farther than you can throw it. Now, neither is the United States of America.
Update: Added Sen. Mark Warner’s statement above.
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