White House Throws Military Under the Bus For Lawless Attack
A lot has happened. Here are some of the things. This is the TPM Morning Memo.
The wheels of the bus go round and round
It seemed inevitable that President Trump’s comments Sunday night disavowing the second Sept. 2 strike, which killed two survivors of one of his illegal high-seas attacks on suspected drug trafficking boats, would ultimately lead him to scapegoat the military. But things moved faster yesterday on this front than I could have imagined.
In a significant acknowledgment, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed that a second strike targeting the two survivors had taken place. But on behalf of the president, she threw Admiral Frank “Mitch” Bradley, commander of Special Operations Command, under the Seal Team 6 double-strike bus, while insisting he was “within the bounds of his authority and the law.”
“His scripted remarks at a press briefing sparked a furious reaction within the Defense Department,” the WaPo reported, “where officials described feeling angry over uncertainty over whether [Defense Secretary Pete] Hegseth would take responsibility for his alleged role in the operation – or let the military and civilian personnel under his command face the consequences.
In a social media post, Hegseth also underestimated Bradley by wrapping him in an embrace of blame: “Admiral Mitch Bradley is an American hero, a true professional, and he has my support 100%. I support him and the combat decisions he made – on the September 2 mission and every other since.”
The precise contours of the Trump administration’s defense of the president and Pentagon chief are still emerging, but they appear to hinge on a fine distinction between the general order given by Hegseth for the attack and the specific order given by Bradley for the second strike that killed the survivors of the first strike. It is very unclear whether the facts support such a distinction – or whether this distinction changes the legal analysis that both strikes were illegal.
New reporting from the New York Times offers some fine-grained details from five anonymous U.S. officials:
- There was not a single second strike but “multiple follow-up strikes.”
- Hegseth only issued a written order for the attack, not a verbal order as the original WaPo story reported.
- The army intercepted radio communications between one of the survivors and drug traffickers, according to an official.
Bradley is expected to brief lawmakers in a confidential session this week.
Perhaps complicating matters, a Defense Department official told the WSJ that Hegseth was the “target engagement authority,” the key figure who authorized the strike. Further complicating Hegseth’s attempt to distance himself, he bragged on Fox News the day after the attack that he had “watched it live”:
Pure anarchy
Some in-depth information on the laws of armed conflict, military attacks against civilians and current American laws:
- Former Navy Magistrate Judge Todd Huntley told the New Yorker: “Basically, this is the only strike that we know of where even if you accept the administration’s position that the United States is in an armed conflict with these drug cartels, it would still be illegal under the armed conflict laws, because the individuals were out of combat and wrecked, and therefore needed to be protected.” »
- Associated Press: “It doesn’t matter that the United States is in armed conflict with drug cartels, as the Trump administration claims. Such a fatal second strike would have violated peacetime and armed conflict laws, experts say.”
- Jack Goldsmith, Harvard law professor and former head of the Office of Legal Counsel: “[S]The warrior ethos, whatever that means, certainly does not require killing defenseless men clinging to the burning wreckage of an exploded boat.
- Mark Nevitt of Just Security: “The United States, which has military forces deployed around the world, cannot build a safer world for its own military by ignoring the basic laws of war. History shows that when America blatantly abandons humane norms and the laws of war, it ultimately puts its own people in danger.”
Leave Franklin out of this
In response to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s grotesque use of a children’s book character to celebrate America’s lawless high seas attacks, the Canadian publisher of the Franklin the Turtle series released this statement:
Noem touts new travel ban
The Trump administration continues to respond to the shooting in Washington of two National Guardsmen by an Afghan refugee by cracking down on immigration pathways and using dehumanizing language toward people of color.
Now, in response to what she calls “foreign invaders,” DHS Secretary Kristi Noem is proposing a new “total travel ban on every damn country that is flooding our nation with killers, leeches, and welfare junkies.” Not at all dehumanizing:
Court of Appeal: Habba is not properly named in the United States
A unanimous three-judge panel of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court’s ruling that Trump’s former lawyer, Alina Habba, was not validly appointed as U.S. Attorney for New Jersey:
The Punishment: James Comey Edition
Trump’s DOJ could present a new indictment against James Comey before a grand jury as soon as this week, CNN reports:
People familiar with the situation within the Justice Department believe what happens next could happen quickly and that, regardless, prosecutors will likely present new indictments against former FBI Director and New York Attorney General Letitia James before grand juries in the Eastern District of Virginia.
A new indictment of James was expected, but the statute of limitations has expired on the charges against Comey, making it difficult for prosecutors to continue pursuing him unless they can convince a court of an exception or workaround to the statute of limitations problem.
Acting U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan remains in place despite a judge’s ruling last week that her appointment was invalid, leading to the dismissal of Comey and James’ initial indictments.
In a related development that could make it even more difficult to prosecute Comey, Columbia University law professor Daniel Richman has filed suit against the government for the return of documents seized from him during the Arctic Haze investigation and which now form the basis of the charges against Comey. In the Richman trial, first reported by Anna Bower, he seeks:
Retribution: Fani Willis edition
Buried in a New York Times article about the end of Georgia’s fake voter scandal are two data points about what Trump’s DOJ is up to in the state:
- Its investigation into Atlanta District Attorney Fani Willis, who first initiated the prosecution of bogus voters, issued “several dozen subpoenas” and the FBI began interviewing witnesses. What had previously been reported by The New York Times as an investigation into a trip Willis took to the Bahamas is now a “broader investigation” led by Theodore Hertzberg, the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Georgia.
- He also continues to challenge Trump’s 2020 defeat by “trying to get tens of thousands of ballots cast in Georgia” in that election.
Autonomy of historic proportions
New York Times: U.S. Funds Fewer Grants Across All Areas of Science and Medicine
Letter of the day
A letter to the editor from surgical oncologist Michael Baum, on how Arcadia by Tom Stoppard, who died last week at age 88, inspired a valuable new hypothesis about breast cancer metastasis:
h/t my former TPM colleague Kate Klonick
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