All posts tagged "pentagon"

This ruthless cover-up leaves Trump’s most alarming ambitions exposed

Donald Trump recently told reporters he’d have “no problem” releasing video of US strikes off the Venezuelan coast where two survivors clinging to the shipwreck were shown no quarter — executions that violated federal law, the US Code on War Crimes, and the Uniform Code of Military Justice prohibiting murder.

But when asked about the video three days later, Trump denied ever agreeing to release it, claiming, “You said that, I didn’t say that. This is ABC fake news,” before pivoting to “whatever Pete Hegseth decides” to release to the media will be fine with him.

It was a safe punt. The Secretary of Defense has fought media access to the Pentagon like no secretary before him. Hegseth will keep spinning his “kill everyone” strikes, his Signalgate publication of war plans, and every other military crime he can get away with until he is stopped.

Ministry of Truth

Hegseth, a former Fox News bobblehead with barely-there military credentials, fights the release of any Pentagon information that he hasn’t choreographed.

In September, Hegseth announced a new DOD policy that essentially required journalists to get his permission before they publish. Journalists were required to sign pledges acknowledging that if they ask the wrong questions, or probe into department employees in any way that could elicit the wrong kinds of information, they could be labeled a national security risk, lose their Pentagon press badges, and be blocked from the building.

When Hegseth announced the change, credible media outlets cried foul.

The New York Times called it an attempt to “constrain how journalists can report on the US military, which is funded by nearly $1 trillion in taxpayer dollars annually,” adding that the public has the “right to know how the government and military are operating.”

The National Press Club echoed that with, “For generations, Pentagon reporters have provided the public with vital information about how wars are fought, how defense dollars are spent, and how decisions are made that put American lives at risk. That work has only been possible because reporters could seek out facts without needing government permission.”

Last week, the NYT put teeth into their criticism, and filed suit to restore media access.

Illegal 'prior restraint'

Hegseth’s reach for a “media oath” smacks of prior restraint, a type of government censorship before publication that has long been deemed unconstitutional. Several early cases examined when national security interests were strong enough to overcome First Amendment freedoms in times of war; during WWII, “Loose lips sink ships” reflected an awareness that advance public disclosure of military secrets could be dangerous.

But in 1971, the Supreme Court held that prior restraint on speech by the government is unconstitutional, requiring an "exceptional" showing of "grave and irreparable" danger.

In The New York Times vs. the United States, the Nixon administration tried to block publication of the Pentagon Papers by arguing that publication of classified documents about the Vietnam War would endanger national security, necessitating prior restraint to protect vital security interests. The Supreme Court ruled that the public’s right to know outweighed the danger of publication, and that vague security claims aren't enough to censor the press.

In order to support an issuance of prior restraint today, the government must prove that publication would cause inevitable, direct, and immediate danger to the United States. In Hegseth’s “kill everyone” bombings, it’s hard to fathom how releasing video after the fact would jeopardize anything other than his own spin, as all victims are dead, their ships obliterated, and Trump himself repeatedly posts snuff videos of the violence.

National security risk

Blind to irony, both Hegseth and Trump have personally modeled why some military secrets should not be published, at least not in advance of the act.

In March, Hegseth’s Signal chat published US plans of attack in Yemen, including the exact time and location of the planned attack, which easily could have led to ambush or counter attacks costing American lives.

In June, Trump posted that the US knew where Iran’s enriched uranium was stockpiled, giving Iran advanced warnings to move it before the bombing began, which Iran did.

Both Trump and Hegseth seriously jeopardized national security by releasing US military plans of attack in advance, which no media outlet has sought the right to do.

Nonetheless, Hegseth’s new media restraints require Pentagon approval before public release of even unclassified information, because “unauthorized disclosure … poses a security risk that could damage the national security of the United States and place personnel in jeopardy.”

Press in MAGA hats

After 80 years of free press access to the Pentagon and military professionals who work there, Hegseth has granted himself sole authority to determine when journalists pose “national security risks.”

Based on a journalist's “receipt, publication, or solicitation of any ‘unauthorized’ information,” Hegseth has unbridled discretion to block, eject, and blacklist them. This amounts to authority to revoke reporters' access to the Pentagon for engaging in lawful newsgathering, which is an illegal, prior restraint to stop speech before it happens.

Hegseth has now replaced all credible media outlets with MAGA content creators, whom he welcomed to the Pentagon earlier this week for press briefings. These MAGA influencers, despite their lack of reporting or military beat experience, are the “new Pentagon press corps.” They include the My Pillow guy, nutjob Trump whisperer Laura Loomer, and Tim Pool, who was paid to produce videos for a company secretly funded by the Russian government.

All of them signed Hegseth’s required pledge.

Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.

Trump's thug just turned America against him — for good

Don’t be fooled. The only people undermining the American military’s chain of command are the president and his secretary of defense.

How?

Specifically, by blaming the admiral who was in charge of the boat bombing in the Caribbean in September. More generally, by lying and acting cowardly. Leaders who stand by their decisions and take responsibility for them tend to inspire trust. Those who don’t don’t.

According to the Washington Post, Pete Hegseth gave the order to “kill everybody.” Now, however, he’s now scapegoating Adm. Frank Bradley. That suggests that Hegseth is well aware of the truth — that the bombing was illegal, that the follow-up bombing of survivors was illegal, and that killing alleged criminals without due process of law is murder.

Donald Trump is now helping Hegseth run from criminal consequences.

The president wants us to believe that six Democrats who made a video urging military personnel to refuse illegal orders are “sowing distrust and chaos in our arms force,” according to the Pentagon, and “putting military servicemembers in harm’s way by telling them to disobey their commander-in-chief,” according to the White House.

Asking servicemembers to act honorably never hurt them. Reminding them to act lawfully never sowed distrust. But leaders commanding subordinates to murder and then throwing them away? Forget about disobeying illegal orders. Hegseth is making it so no one obeys any.

The focus now seems to be on the second strike and whether it was legal. The question is of consequences — should a “secretary of war” who commits a “war crime” in the absence of war still have his job?

That seems overwrought. There is no war. There are no war crimes. Hegseth wanted to pretend, because “war” makes good TV and makes his daddy look strong. But when playtime was over, and he realized he was in trouble, Hegseth decided that the principles of the “warrior ethos” weren’t worth it. It was better to save his own skin. This week, he said the “fog of war” prevented him from seeing the September bombing survivors. He repeated that killing them was Bradley’s call.

Whatever the facts of the bombing are, and they will be determined by a congressional investigation, they are secondary to the facts of Hegseth’s behavior afterward. That behavior is more devastating to the military than his command to kill everybody.

“The ‘kill everybody’ chest-thumping only works as long as he never has to own the moral and legal weight that actual soldiers carry,” an authority on military strategy and civil-military relations told me.

He went on:

“The moment accountability enters the picture, he backpedals and shifts blame onto the uniformed military. That’s precisely the kind of cowardice that professionals, people who live in a world where responsibility is inseparable from lethality, find contemptible.”

Contempt.

Once it’s sunk in, there’s no going back.

The authority I’m quoting here goes by the name of Secretary of Defense Rock. I asked for his real name, but because Trump is the president, he declined. He publishes History Does You, a newsletter about “the complex dynamics between military and civilian spheres.”

In the interview below, he explains why Trump’s critics are missing the big picture: “The White House’s willingness to validate Hegseth’s narrative is setting up a collision course between the president and the military, and the only open question is how far the brass will go in quietly distancing themselves while still providing him political cover.”

JS: Hegseth seems to be saying that Adm. Bradley made the call to kill survivors of the September boat attack. The White House seems to be backing him up. What's going on here from your perspective?

SDR: It increasingly looks like the military is being positioned as the fall guy. With the House and Senate now pledging bipartisan investigations into the strikes, the uniformed side, bound by its "apolitical" posture, won’t publicly contradict the president, but senior officers will almost certainly push back through background briefings. The real story is that the White House’s willingness to validate Hegseth’s narrative is setting up a collision course between the president and the military, and the only open question is how far the brass will go in quietly distancing themselves while still providing him political cover.

It seems to me Hegseth has triggered a crisis of leadership. I mean, the Democrats want military personnel to refuse illegal orders. Hegseth is creating conditions in which people might refuse to obey any orders. If you can't trust the leader, then cover your ass, right?

Hegseth is effectively manufacturing a leadership crisis by eroding trust in the chain of command and civil-military relations. Democrats are focused on the narrow issue of refusing unlawful orders, but Hegseth’s framing invites something far more destabilizing: a worldview in which service members doubt the legitimacy of any orders from senior commanders. Once you introduce the idea that the commander might be lying or covering up war crimes, the instinct becomes cover your ass rather than execute, and that corrodes the very foundation of military discipline.

It should be said that Hegseth is demonstrating cowardice. "Kill everybody, but don't blame me.” That seems to expose the falsehood behind his whole "warrior ethos" position that there's no actual warrior there, just a cardboard cutout of one. I can't imagine that going over well with people with a sense of honor. Thoughts?

It cracks me up that he went to hang out with SOCOM, where they allowed him to ride on a little-bird helicopter, and cosplay as a warrior, and is now throwing them under the bus months later. The “kill everybody” chest-thumping only works as long as he never has to own the moral and legal weight that actual soldiers carry. The moment accountability enters the picture, he backpedals and shifts blame onto the uniformed military. That’s precisely the kind of cowardice that professionals, people who live in a world where responsibility is inseparable from lethality, find contemptible. It clearly exposes his “warrior ethos” as theater, not a character trait, and that gap will be evident to anyone who has actually worn a uniform or taken real risks, the more he continues to backpedal and blame others.

A warrior without honor is just a thug or the kind of man who would try telling us that murder is actually a heroic act of war worthy of praise. That seems to be missing from the debate so far. All the focus is on the second strike. But the first strike is clearly illegal, as in: America is not at war. What are we focusing on this and not that?

I kind of presume it’s because the American political system and the media ecosystem around it is always drawn to the spectacle around an action rather than the legality at the core of it. You’re right that a warrior without honor collapses into mere thuggery, and that is exactly the type of figure who reframes killing as valor while disowning responsibility. But the public debate isn’t grappling with that deeper moral question, because everyone has fixated on the second strike, the sensational story, the alleged order, the human drama. It is easier to fight over personalities, blame-shifting, and who said what than it is to confront the uncomfortable foundational issue that the first strike, and the strikes over the last few months, may have lacked a clear legal basis because the United States is not formally at war.

Focusing on the second strike lets politicians argue over process, mistakes, and optics without questioning the mission's legality. It's particularly safer for Republicans because it avoids forcing a reckoning with whether the president of their own party authorized an act of war without proper authority.

Hegseth survived the Signal scandal. He's clearly a national security threat. He will become more so over time. Is there impeachment in his future in your view? Perhaps if Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) leads the charge?

I have a hard time believing Republicans are going to make a serious effort, even though there is a lot of infighting. I think it's going to boil down to how successful Democrats are in the midterms, and if the leadership thinks that's a worthwhile use of political capital. I think there will be a clear case for impeachment, especially if uniformed military personnel testify about the strikes and point the finger at Hegseth. It already sounds like, behind the scenes, the administration is thinking of changing out Hegseth, but he wants a golden parachute. I think Kelly certainly has the credentials as a centrist Democratic veteran for impeachment. Again, it's really going to boil down to elections and what the military says happened.

Trump's lackeys just committed unspeakable acts for him — and they don't have immunity

The latest South Park episode nailed it: When “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth gets wind of a small Colorado town’s annual holiday race, he declares it an “Antifa uprising” and calls out the troops to crush it. While armed forces assemble their AK-47s, Hegseth struts around filming himself for well-coiffed social media content, unaware that his obsession with “lethality” looks unhinged.

South Park’s point, previewed during Hegseth’s shameful speech at Quantico, and his sophomoric tome championing war without rules, is that Donald Trump has reduced the US military to an absurdist prop so grotesque it raises questions of insanity.

After a series of US strikes in the ocean killed 87 people suspected of trafficking drugs, strikes properly assessed as murder regardless of whether people died in the first, second, or whichever strike, Congress is finally alarmed as calls for Hegseth's impeachment grow.

Strikes cannot be justified

Two days after the Washington Post first reported that Hegseth issued a command to “Kill them all” in a September attack on the high seas, which led to a second strike that killed survivors, Hegseth posted a juvenile cartoon making light of his own crime. Hegseth’s post depicted a chubby turtle standing on helicopter skids, laughing as he fires a bazooka close-range at boats below.

Aside from depicting the slaughter of humans as a children’s war game, Hegseth’s post also perpetuates a lie: Neither drugs, nor rifles, nor weapons of any kind have appeared in any of the snuff videos Hegseth and Trump keep posting to brag about the killings. To date, the administration has offered no intelligence or evidence whatsoever, other than Trump’s personal opinion, to support the claim that the destroyed boats were carrying drugs, arms, or illicit cargo. Even if they were, military law requires interdiction, seizure and process, not unilateral, on-the-spot executions.

Hegseth also claims the strikes are in compliance with the laws of armed conflict, and “approved by the best military and civilian lawyers, up and down the chain of command.” Except there weren’t any top lawyers left “up and down the chain of command” after Hegseth fired the top Judge Advocates General (JAGs) for the Army, Navy, and Air Force in February.

JAGs come back to haunt

The JAGS didn’t slink away quietly. After Hegseth fired them, they formed a watchdog. Former JAGs Working Group. now warning that Hegseth’s orders on the high seas “constitute war crimes, murder, or both.” They also echoed six Democratic lawmakers reminding servicemembers of their duty to disobey patently illegal orders, adding, “anyone who issues or follows such orders can and should be prosecuted for war crimes, murder, or both.”

After Hegseth and Trump appeared to throw commanding officer Adm. Frank Bradley under the bus, blaming Bradley, not Hegseth, for the second strike that killed the survivors, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt read a statement that Bradley’s conduct was “well within his authority and the law directing the engagement.” Except, of course, it wasn’t.

The administration seems to be arguing that the strikes are lawful, despite not knowing the identities of anyone onboard, because Trump has “determined” that the US is in a formal armed conflict with drug cartels. But Congress has not declared any such war, and one-sided orders to execute suspects do not constitute an ‘armed conflict’ under any military code.

The State Department’s designation of drug cartels as “Foreign Terrorist Organizations” does not provide legal authority to execute them because the “imminent threat” rule limits lethal force to immediate threats to life. Trump/Hegseth’s assumption that these small boats: 1. are carrying drugs; 2. are destined for the US; 3. will make it that far; 4. without sufficient fuel; 5. will eventually cause deaths; 6. of some Americans; 7. who choose to use the drugs, does not support an “imminent threat” analysis under any law, for reasons that should be obvious from the string-along assumptions listed.

Guilt (and execution) by association

After the first boat strike on Sept. 2, 2025, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the military could have interdicted the vessel, which is how the Coast Guard normally responds to drug vessels, but chose instead to kill everyone on board because Trump wanted to “send a message.”

Hegseth continues to parrot Trump’s “message,” posting recently, “Every trafficker we kill is affiliated with a Designated Terrorist Organization,” and, “We have only just begun to kill narco-terrorists.”

It matters little which strike ended the lives. Trump’s legally suspect campaign of executing people based on a suspicion that they are smuggling drugs didn’t start with Hegseth’s order to “Kill them all,” it started with Trump’s assumption that the presidency makes him judge, jury and executioner.

Legal authorities rejecting Trump’s assumption include the DOD’s Law of War Manual; the Hague Regulations; the Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act; the Uniform Code of Military Justice prohibiting extrajudicial killings; the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights; and state and federal statutes prohibiting murder.

People disinclined to read the law but inclined to think the government can execute people suspected of committing crimes should consider: If a police officer thinks I am going to beat my wife when I get home, can he shoot me in the face before I get there?

Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.

Trump admin breached a 'red line you cannot cross': ex-JAG officer

One retired Judge Advocate General Corps (JAG) officer says officials in President Donald Trump's Pentagon may have been aware they were breaking international law when carrying out a controversial strike in September.

During a Thursday interview with CNN, Dan Maurer — a 22-year U.S. Army veteran who served as a military attorney — broke down how legal experts within the Department of Defense regularly advise top commanders of sensitive missions before a strike is carried out. He explained that the process is particularly relevant given the recent closed-door testimony of Admiral Frank M. Bradley, who led the Sept. 2, 2025, operation in which two survivors of a boat strike in the Caribbean Sea were killed in a secondary strike.

During his remarks, Bradley refuted the initial Washington Post report about the "double-tap" strike on the two survivors — who were clinging to the wreckage of their vessel after a U.S. missile destroyed it — saying that the allegation that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave orders to "kill everybody" never occurred. He also maintained that he ordered the secondary strike to be necessary because the survivors were radioing for help. Maurer said Bradley was not making a "sound legal argument" to justify the second strike.

"It's not factually accurate," he said. "... The bottom line is, a shipwrecked crew member of a vessel ... a combatant, a street criminal, whoever it is, is shipwrecked and, communicating back to shore, communicating back to their organization, communicating to someone they know for a rescue, does not make them a combatant. It does not make them targetable. It is simply calling for rescue. They have to actually pose a threat to someone else."

President Donald Trump has argued that the U.S. is in a state of armed conflict with drug cartels as a means of justifying his boat strikes in the Caribbean, which have killed more than 80 people to date. Maurer went on to say that even if the U.S. was operating under the rules of an official armed conflict, it still wouldn't justify the Sept. 2 strike.

"The laws of war would still prohibit targeting shipwrecked crew members, again, no matter how evil they are, no matter how bad they are, no matter how high up in the chain of command they are, they are hors de combat, period," Maurer said, referring to the French phrase for "out of the fight" in Rule 47 of International Humanitarian Law (IHL).

Maurer explained that in a situation where commanders are preparing to carry out a lethal strike, there is typically a military lawyer on hand to advise them of the legality of an action. He added, however, that commanders of missions still have the authority to make the final decision regardless of what advice a military lawyer may give.

"In an operations center that is commanding and controlling a targeting operation ... that would involve the commander, various munitions experts, targeteers, planners, logisticians and a JAG, a Judge Advocate General Corps officer," he said. "And at the high level of [Joint Special Operations Command]; a three-star command, or [U.S. Southern Command]; a four-star command, the lawyer in the room — and there may be more than one — are usually very, very experienced."

"They have a lot of experience. They have a lot of judgment. They've been around the block. They understand the laws of armed conflict. They understand how to interpret evidence," he continued. "And again, if you're in a combat situation, in an armed conflict, that lawyer is there to ensure that the target is a valid, legitimate target in accordance with the rules of engagement ... [T]he law of war and the rules of engagement are supposed to reflect the laws of war. No rule of engagement — no matter how aggressive the command wants to be, no matter how aggressive the commander in chief wants to be — no rule of engagement can break the laws of armed conflict. It is a red line you cannot cross."

Watch the segment below:

- YouTube www.youtube.com

Congressman announces articles of impeachment against Trump's Pentagon chief for 'murder'

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is now facing an impeachment push from a Democratic member of the House of Representatives, who is accusing him of committing murder.

Axios' Andrew Solender reported Wednesday that Rep. Shri Thanedar (D-Mich.) will be officially unveiling articles of impeachment against the embattled Pentagon chief during an event at Union Station in Washington D.C. on Thursday morning. Thanedar is introducing the legislation alongside a group that has been carrying out a sustained 24-hour, daily protest against President Donald Trump's administration.

"Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has committed war crimes through his military strikes in the Caribbean and the Eastern Pacific Ocean and his reckless and unlawful handling of classified information," a statement accompanying the announcement read.

According to the statement, Thanedar's impeachment legislation accuses Hegseth of "murder," "conspiracy to murder" and "reckless and unlawful handling of classified information." The Michigan Democrat has previously filed articles of impeachment against Trump alleging obstruction of justice and abuse of executive power, as well as usurpation of appropriations power and abuse of trade powers, among others.

Hegseth has been the target of Congressional probes this week after the Washington Post reported that he ordered the killing of two survivors left adrift following a September 2, 2025 boat strike in the Caribbean Sea. The White House didn't deny the attack occurred, but clarified that Admiral Frank M. Bradley was the commander of that mission and officially gave the order to carry out the secondary strike on the two survivors.

International Humanitarian Law (IHL) stipulates that anyone deemed hors de combat (French for "out of the fight") is to be spared from further attacks. IHL also prohibits "no-quarter" orders, in which survivors of an attack are declared to be non-combatants. Former judge Advocate General Corps (JAG) officer Dan Maurer told CNN this week that if the Post's reporting is true, then Hegseth and everyone involved in the chain of command for the September 2 mission committed "murder." Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), who is a retired Air Force brigadier general, also called on Trump to fire Hegseth.

The defense secretary was also singled out on Wednesday after the Pentagon's Office of the Inspector General found that his sharing of classified information via the Signal messaging app endangered the lives of U.S. troops. Hegseth accidentally included Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg on a group text in which he shared sensitive details about air strikes against Houthi rebels in Yemen.

This outrage is too grotesque to absorb — yet it explains so much

Shocking as this moment is, none of us should pretend we weren’t warned. When Donald Trump installed Pete Hegseth — a television provocateur whose public record is soaked in belligerence, booze, and culture-war performance — as America’s Defense Secretary, the world could see exactly where it was headed.

Still, nothing prepared us for the Washington Post revelation that Hegseth personally ordered U.S. forces to “kill everybody” on a small wooden boat off the coast of Trinidad on Sept. 2.

You’d expect rogue militias or failed-state paramilitaries to speak that way. You don’t expect it from the man running the Pentagon.

What the Post reports is almost too grotesque to absorb.

After the first U.S. missile ripped the boat apart and set it burning, commanders watched on a live drone feed as two survivors clung desperately to the charred wreckage.

They were unarmed. They were wounded. They were no threat to anyone. They were simply alive; inconveniently alive for a man who had allegedly already given the order that there be no survivors.

And so, according to two officials with direct knowledge of the strike, the Special Operations commander overseeing the operation ordered a second missile. It hit the water and blew those two men apart.

History tells us to watch out for nations that lose their moral compass in real time.

It starts when the powerful stop seeing human beings as human. It accelerates when the government itself denies any obligation to justify its killings.

And when leaders begin lying to Congress and the public to cover what they’ve done, you’re no longer looking at isolated abuses. You’re staring straight into the machinery of authoritarianism.

Instead of telling Congress that the second strike was designed to finish off wounded survivors, Pentagon officials claimed it was to “remove a navigation hazard.”

That isn’t just spin: it’s an attempt to rewrite reality.

The Post quotes Todd Huntley, a former Special Operations military lawyer now at Georgetown Law, saying exactly what any first-year law student would immediately recognize: because the U.S. is not legally “at war” with drug traffickers, killing the people on that boat “amounts to murder.”

Even if a war did exist, Huntley notes, the order to kill wounded, unarmed survivors “would in essence be an order to show no quarter,” which is defined under the Geneva Conventions as a war crime.

This isn’t an obscure legal debate. This is basic civilization. Armed states do not execute helpless people in the water.

And yet this is now U.S. policy. The boat strike on Sept. 2 was not a one-off. It was the beginning of a campaign.

The Post reports that since that first attack, Trump and Hegseth have ordered more than 20 similar missile strikes on small boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, killing at least 80 people.

The administration insists the victims were members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. But in classified briefings to Congress, Pentagon officials have not provided even one single verified name of a trafficker or gang leader they’ve killed. Lawmakers from both parties say they’ve been shown nothing beyond grainy videos of small boats being destroyed from the air.

If these men had truly been high-value cartel operatives, Trump would be parading names and photos across every rally stage in America. The silence tells its own story.

Experts warn that many of the dead may not have been traffickers at all. They may have been border-crossing migrants, subsistence fishermen, or small-scale smugglers whose crimes did not remotely justify summary execution.

International human rights groups are already calling these killings extrajudicial and illegal. Some foreign governments are asking whether the United States has effectively created a free-fire zone over parts of the Caribbean, and several have limited intelligence sharing with us for fear of being complicit in prosecutable war crimes and crimes against humanity.

This, too, has been part of the authoritarian playbook since ancient times.

Pick a foreign or criminal “other,” paint them as subhuman monsters, and then declare that the normal laws of war, morality, and basic decency no longer apply.

For years, right-wing media has been hyping Tren de Aragua as a kind of supercharged successor to MS-13, just as Trump once used MS-13 as a bludgeon to justify abuses at home.

The fact that the administration has produced no evidence for its claims isn’t a bug: it’s the point. When the government fabricates an omnipresent threat, it gives itself permission to kill whoever it wants.

This may also explain the ferocity with which Hegseth and Trump went after Democratic lawmakers when they reminded U.S. service members that they are duty-bound to disobey illegal orders.

Those officers weren’t being dramatic: they were issuing a warning grounded in fresh blood. And Hegseth’s and Trump’s panicked rage — calling for the death penalty for six members of Congress, including a decorated war hero and a CIA officer — now makes perfect sense: he knows perfectly well what he’s already ordered.

The strike on Sept. 2 is not just a policy failure; it’s a moral collapse. If the Post’s reporting is accurate — and multiple congressional offices say it is consistent with what whistleblowers have told them — then the United States has engaged in the deliberate killing of wounded, unarmed men floating in the sea.

That is the kind of conduct that topples governments, triggers war-crimes investigations, and leaves scars on nations for generations.

Nobody elected Trump or Hegseth to serve as judge, jury, and executioner for impoverished people in wooden boats. Nobody gave them the authority to murder suspects without trial. And nobody gave them the right to lie to Congress about it.

Congress must not let this pass. These allegations demand immediate public hearings, subpoena power, and full investigative authority.

If Hegseth gave an order to “kill everybody,” he must be removed and prosecuted.

If U.S. commanders falsified reports to mislead Congress and the public, they must be held accountable.

And if Trump approved or encouraged these actions, then impeachment and criminal referral are not optional: they’re required to defend the rule of law.

America doesn’t have many chances left to prove to the world, and to ourselves, that we still believe in the value of human life and the restraints of democratic power. This is one of them.

'Worst in the administration': MAGA civil war breaks out over Trump Pentagon nominees

A MAGA civil war broke out over President Donald Trump's Pentagon nominees, with a Republican lawmaker criticizing one of them and saying they are "the worst in the administration."

Tensions were brewing during a hearing Tuesday over Trump's choices to lead the Pentagon’s policy office and exposing some of the infighting happening among Republican lawmakers and the party, The Daily Beast reports Wednesday.

Austin Dahmer, nominee for the Pentagon's assistant secretary of defense for strategy, and Pentagon policy chief Elbridge Colby, were under fire over several major policy decisions. Republicans questioning the two expressed their disappointment in both of them.

Republicans slammed Dahmer, claiming he is hard to reach and calling out his choice to withdraw U.S. troops in Romania and end military aid for Ukraine.

"Many of the frustrations aired Tuesday came from GOP senators who argued that, regardless of such policy disagreements, Colby and Dahmer’s office has been uncooperative whenever lawmakers have requested information," according to The Washington Post.

Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) accused Dahmer of lying about briefing Congress over pulling the U.S. troops in Romania. About 1,000 troops will reportedly remain in that country.

The committee chair, Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) at one point paused the hearing, saying that the briefings never happened. He asked, “Where did you get that information?”

Dahmer responded saying it was a miscommunication.

Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) described his and other lawmakers frustrations, saying they “can’t even get a response…and we’re on your team.”

He argued Colby as being uncommunicative and claimed that he is “really bad on this. The worst in the administration.”

Republicans are also weary of Colby, arguing that they feel "blindsided" by his decisions, frustrating allies and going against the White House policies, Politico reports.

It's unclear if Dahmer's nomination will go forward.

Hegseth orders Pentagon to oust disloyal civilian workers he likened to 'debris'

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reportedly ordered the Pentagon to oust disloyal civilian workers — whom he likened to "debris" — as part of a broad effort to remove people who don't subscribe to President Donald Trump's agenda.

The Washington Post reported on a memo issued just days before the government shutdown started that removed key protections to make it easier to get rid of such workers.

The memo sparked concerns among the Pentagon workforce and circulated over the last week, The Post reported Tuesday. The new guidelines were defined in a memo titled "Separation of Employees with Unacceptable Performance” dated Sept. 30 and directed managers to move with "speed and conviction" to fire employees whose performance reviews were "unacceptable" last month.

"The civilian firings are part of a larger effort by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that aims to get rid of the 'debris' he claims is obstructing his mission to deliver on President Donald Trump’s agenda," The Post reported.

“The sooner we have the right people, the sooner we can advance the right policies. Personnel is policy,” Hegseth said in September during his speech to hundreds of top military brass at Marine Corps Base Quantico.

“The Department is in the process of adapting to the new guidance outlined in Under Secretary of War Tata’s memo from September 30th and we have nothing specific to share at this time,” the Pentagon said in a statement to The Post.

Sean Timmons, a managing partner at the firm Tully Rinckey, who specializes in federal employment and military law, described what could happen next.

“They are gutting federal employee protections significantly,” Timmons said.

The lessened employment protections are expected to decrease the Pentagon's workforce. Earlier this year, Hegseth was directed to cut about 60,000 people, about 8% of its workforce.

“They’re trying to use any excuse they can to get rid of people who are not with the program,” Timmons said.

These shocking Trump orders are nothing short of murder

Donald Trump has ordered more deadly bombings of small fishing boats, killing everyone onboard, including an incident off the coast of Colombia. That was the ninth US attack against alleged drug dealers in international waters, just since September.

Another strike was announced on Friday, bringing the number of people Trump calls “narco-terrorists” to have perished in these attacks up to 43.

Trump previously told Fox News, “We take them out,” and later joked about how people, most of them desperately poor, are now afraid to fish along certain coastlines.

Without releasing credible evidence, Trump claims the victims’ vessels were “stacked up with bags of white powder that’s mostly fentanyl and other drugs, too.”

Trump says they were “smuggling a deadly weapon poisoning Americans,” on behalf of various “terrorist organizations.”

Trump is calling the victims terrorists so that he can treat them as enemy combatants in a war that does not exist, just as he is doing at home. Domestically, we know Trump calls groups who oppose him politically “domestic terrorists.” We know he fabricated a domestic terrorist organization he calls “Antifa” to sell his plan for violence. We also know his administration is lying about peaceful protestors threatening ICE agents in order to justify ICE brutality, and that ICE refuses to wear body cams without a court order.

Trump’s firehose of lies about domestic ‘terrorists’ won’t help his claims about ‘terrorists’ on the high seas.

Is Trump confusing South America with China and Mexico?

Colombian President Gustavo Petro has credibly accused Trump of murder. In response, instead of offering legal justification, Trump said he was cutting off foreign aid to Colombia, seemingly confusing that nation with Democratic-run states from whom he is also illegally withholding funds.

Bragging about the killings, Trump falsely claimed that every exploded shipping vessel “saves 25,000 American lives.”

In the factual world, about 100,000 Americans die each year from drug overdoses, mostly by fentanyl, which does not come from Venezuela, Colombia or any South American country.

The fentanyl killing Americans comes from labs in Mexico and China. Given his difficulty with geography, Trump may not know the difference. At any rate, South America produces marijuana and cocaine, not fentanyl. Most of the killing fentanyl is smuggled into the country by US citizens, over land.

Legal arguments don’t hold water

The White House claims the strikes are a matter of self-defense. To get there, Trump “determined” that drug cartels like Tren de Aragua are “terrorists.” But officials say Tren de Aragua is not operating in the shipping routes under attack, and that the route Trump and Hegseth are targeting carries cocaine and marijuana to Europe and Africa, not the US.

Legal experts on the use of armed force say Trump’s campaign is illegal because the military is not permitted to target civilians who are not directly participating in hostilities. Key legal instruments prohibiting extrajudicial killings and murder include the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), the Geneva Conventions of 1949, the Statute of the International Criminal Court, and customary international humanitarian law. The Trump administration has not publicly offered a legal theory that comports with any of these laws.

Instead, the White House has argued that the attacks fall under the law of armed conflict (LOAC), which limits methods of warfare and sets out legally required protections for noncombatants and civilians during conflict. The US is in no such conflict; we are not under attack in the US or anywhere else, and Congress has declared no war.

Designating drug cartels as “terrorist organizations” is also factually suspect. Drug cartels exist for profit; all purveyors of illicit drugs are in the business to make money. In contrast, “terrorists” by definition are motivated by ideological goals often involving politics or religion—not profit. Even if they were terrorists, international law would only allow the executive branch to respond through legal methods like freezing assets, trials and imprisonment.

Hegseth and others will face court martial

Trump and Hegseth’s legal arguments have been universally rejected by military legal experts including former lawyers in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, who have condemned the attacks as unlawful under both domestic and international law. Nevertheless, Hegseth has stated enthusiastically that the military will continue these executions.

In February, Hegseth fired the JAGs whose job was to assess the legality of military actions. He may have deliberately done so to engage in illegal conduct and later claim a “mistake of law” defense, but that maneuver won’t save him. In US Servicemembers’ Exposure to Criminal Liability for Lethal Strikes on Narcoterrorists, Just Security lays it out under the Manual for Courts-Martial, and Article 118 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), concluding in the Venezuela strikes that:

Despite the clear absence of an “imminent threat of death or serious injury” or “grave threat to life,” the U.S. Coast Guard did not interdict the alleged criminal narcotrafficking in the way this conduct has been historically (and recently) approached.

These suspected criminals were not arrested, prosecuted, convicted, and sentenced through a regular course of criminal procedure and neutral adjudication in a court. They were killed extrajudicially for conduct that could not be plausibly labeled a military attack, use of force, or even threat of imminent harm to anyone in the United States or any other nation, and despite the opportunity and ability to use less-than-lethal force to stop the boats.

An extrajudicial killing, premeditated and without justification or excuse and without the legal authority tied to an armed conflict, is properly called “murder.” And murder is still a crime for those in uniform who executed the strike even if their targets are dangerous criminals, and even if servicemembers were commanded to do so by their superiors, including the President of the United States.

Under this analysis, “every officer in the chain of command who … directed downward the initial order from the President or Secretary of Defense” would likely fall within the meaning of traditional accomplice liability, and could be charged for murder under Article 118.

Even if a corrupt Supreme Court gave Trump criminal immunity for murder (an unsettled question), someone should let Hegseth know that immunity does not extend to him, or to other service members piloting the drones or firing the missiles under orders that are obviously illegal.

Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.

'Fluffers': Fury erupts as Hegseth's Pentagon unveils 'next generation' of press corps

Fury erupted Wednesday as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's Pentagon introduced what he called the "next generation" of press corps after forcing out media organizations and journalists who refused to sign a loyalty pledge.

Hegseth's right hand and chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell made the announcement Wednesday on X.

"Today, the Department of War is announcing the next generation of the Pentagon press corps. We are excited to announce over 60 journalists, representing a broad spectrum of new media outlets and independent journalists, have signed the Pentagon’s media access policy and will be joining the new Pentagon press corps. Twenty-six journalists across 18 outlets were among the former Pentagon press corps who chose to sign the DOW media access policy," Parnell wrote.

"New media outlets and independent journalists have created the formula to circumvent the lies of the mainstream media and get real news directly to the American people," Parnell added. "Their reach and impact collectively are far more effective and balanced than the self-righteous media who chose to self-deport from the Pentagon. Americans have largely abandoned digesting their news through the lens of activists who masquerade as journalists in the mainstream media. We look forward to beginning a fresh relationship with members of the new Pentagon press corps."

Noticeably missing from the list of media organizations is Fox News — and instead, "sycophants" and "yes men" from super conservative Turning Point USA, among others, have made the cut, according to The New Republic.

Social media users reacted to the update:

"The Pentagon Propoganda Corps," Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN) wrote on X.

"They didn't self-deport; they were pushed out for refusing to let the Pentagon pre-approve their stories. This isn't a new press corps. It's a compliant one. What happens when the only news you get is government-approved?" Investor Thomas Antony wrote on X.

"Wait a minute. The pledge required them to not go where they did not have clearance to go, and to not ask questions about subjects they did not have clearance to discuss. Those same rules applied to me as a Captain in the Marine Corps with a Secret Clearance," EMS helicopter pilot Ken Cox wrote on X.

"Fluffers and propagandists, not journalists," writer Carla Marinucci wrote on X.