Trump’s Twisted Legal Strategy to Bomb at Will Laid Bare
The president has found a way of outwardly legitimizing his use of powers ordinarily reserved for times of war.
Donald Trump is reportedly continuing his administration’s indiscriminate bombing campaign in the Caribbean Sea, exploiting a “double breach” in the system of checks on his presidential authority.
According to a new report in The New York Times, “the irreversible gravity of the killing, combined with the lack of concrete legal justification, clearly exposes a structural weakness of the law as a check on the American presidency.”
In early September, the White House launched a massive military campaign off the southern coast of the United States. Its stated objective: to combat international drug traffickers by targeting vessels suspected of belonging to Latin American cartels, such as the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua.
To date, the MAGA administration has carried out at least ten airstrikes against suspected drug trafficking vessels in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific Ocean, killing 43 people. These attacks were accompanied by an escalation of rhetoric against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and Colombian President Gustavo Petro, whom Trump recently accused of being involved in “drug trafficking.”
In its article, the New York Times claims that Trump used two tactics to ostensibly legitimize his attacks. The first was revealed by a February executive order in which the leader of the MAGA movement declared that “the views of the president and the attorney general on legal matters prevail over those of all employees in the performance of their official duties.” The newspaper claims that this effectively amounts to informing White House lawyers that they are unable to question the legal basis of Trump’s actions.
The second tactic relies on the president’s perception that “factual and legal scenarios” allow him to exercise his legitimate powers, usually reserved for times of war. Trump is acting in this way against targets suspected of involvement in international drug trafficking, not to convict them.
“Combining these two tactics creates a major legal loophole,” reported the New York Times. Mr. Trump can dictate his facts and legal decisions, and executive branch lawyers who want to stay in office must accept them as established facts.
The newspaper added: “By claiming he can compel the military to kill suspected drug traffickers as if they were enemy soldiers on a battlefield, Mr. Trump is blurring the line between law enforcement and war.”
Previous administrations have taken great pains to develop sound legal justifications for aggressive policies, which their critics have characterized as potential violations of domestic and international law. At the White House, officials routinely cite only the number of overdose deaths in the United States and the president’s declaration that the country is at war with drug cartels, according to sources familiar with recent closed-door congressional meetings.
Trump himself has also casually spoken and posted about his ongoing campaign in the Caribbean, boasting of “its violence and… it’s incredible, the weapons used,” and even his approval of covert CIA operations in Venezuela.
Professor Jack Goldsmith said: “Nixon tried to cover up his crimes, and the Bush administration sought to cover up torture. This secrecy acknowledged that these practices were reprehensible.” He added: “Trump, as he often does when he violates the law or norms, acts openly and without shame or concern. This is a very effective way to undermine the effectiveness of the law and norms.” »
A White House spokesperson told The New York Times that Trump was simply fulfilling his campaign promise to bring to justice the cartels whose operations have “needlessly killed innocent Americans,” emphasizing that his “unprecedented action” would continue.
The spokesperson added: “All of these decisive strikes targeted specific narco-terrorists, as confirmed by U.S. intelligence, who brought this deadly poison to our shores, and the president will continue to use every resource at America’s disposal to stop the flow of drugs into our country and bring those responsible to justice.”
