U.S. President Donald Trump speaks with Trade and Manufacturing adviser Peter Navarro and Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., June 3, 2026. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
A former federal prosecutor warned on Wednesday that President Donald Trump is hiding the enormous cost of his most heinous scandal right under the noses of Americans.
Harry Litman, a former deputy assistant attorney general, argued in a new Substack essay that Trump's "[lurching] from scandal to scandal like a drunken sailor" had effectively distracted the American public from his intensified bombing campaigns in South America. He added that the strikes have not only killed close to 200 people, but also "violate the law and bring our country into disrepute."
"We are already giving this tinpot dictator far more attention than he deserves, and yet not nearly enough to keep vigil over the enormous costs of his lawlessness," Litman wrote.
Litman noted scandals like Signalgate — when multiple top Trump officials leaked sensitive military operation plans to Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, through a private encrypted messaging platform not approved for government use — and the heavily redacted Jeffrey Epstein files have been largely swept under the rug by Trump's repeated lawlessness.
Litman added that the bombing campaign carries an enormous cost and highlights the need for a more wide-ranging oversight regime once the Trump administration is out of office.
"Two hundred people killed in secret, in international waters, without legal authority, without evidence of effect, at a cost of nearly five billion dollars. It is still happening, under our noses as it were, but we’re focused on other things," he wrote.