Donald Trump and adviser Stephen Miller’s grand plan to ramp up the war on drugs by blowing up alleged “narcoterrorists” in attacks from above did not pass legal muster with the lawyers at the CIA.

So they ran to a more compliant Pentagon.

According to a report from the Washington Post’s Ellen Nakashima, Warren P. Strobel and Alex Horton, Donald Trump’s CIA director John Ratcliffe busily began planning the attacks via a variety of methods but then butted heads with lawyers in his department who questioned the legality of the unprovoked killing of foreign citizens.

The Post is reporting, “... early on, according to two people familiar with the matter, the administration proposed having the CIA use its unique covert authorities to conduct the lethal strikes on drug traffickers that Trump and Stephen Miller, his powerful homeland security adviser, wanted,” however, “Lawyers at the spy agency and elsewhere in the government were skeptical. Was killing civilian drug traffickers defensible under domestic law, they asked, if the cartels do not actually seek to attack Americans, even if the product they smuggle might lead to deaths in the United States?”

According to one official who wished to remain anonymous, “There is no actual threat justifying self defense — there are not organized armed groups seeking to kill Americans.”

The report notes that Trump and Miller faced “pushback” from CIA attorneys forcing them to revisit a back-up plan using the Pentagon, headed by former Fox News personality Pete Hegseth, with Post adding the caveat, “And it came up with a legal justification that national security law experts inside and out of government have said does not stand up to facts: that the country was in a ‘non-international’ armed conflict with ‘designated terrorist organizations.’.”

“In the ongoing mission the Pentagon recently dubbed Operation Southern Spear, U.S. military forces have killed more than 80 people in 21 strikes on boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific,” after Trump gave the go-ahead with the Post reporting, “The details of the finding that Trump signed in October are classified. But several people familiar with it have said it is broadly scoped, aggressive and aimed at countering transnational criminal organizations, including through lethal force.”

“Many of the lawyers and other career officials at the White House National Security Council, Pentagon and Justice Department who had over the preceding months raised concerns about using lethal force against narcotraffickers had either left government or were reassigned or removed,” the Post is reporting.

You can read more here.

Two key Senate Democrats have launched an inquiry after a ProPublica investigation revealed this week that a White House official had intervened on behalf of his former legal clients — pro-Trump influencer Andrew Tate and his brother — during a federal investigation.

On Thursday, Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Gary Peters sent letters to the White House and the Department of Homeland Security asking for a full accounting of the official’s activities, calling his actions a “brazen interference with a federal investigation.”

ProPublica reported this week that the official, Paul Ingrassia, told senior DHS officials to return electronic devices seized from the Tate brothers when they arrived in the U.S. in February. Ingrassia made clear the request was coming from the White House, according to interviews and records that ProPublica reviewed.

The Tates are facing sex trafficking accusations in three countries. Ingrassia, who has served as White House Liaison to DHS and to the Department of Justice, was part of a legal team that represented the pair before he joined the White House.

Ingrassia had been President Donald Trump’s nominee for the Office of Special Counsel, but the administration withdrew his name after Politico reported he had sent a series of racist text messages to other conservative activists. (His lawyer raised doubts about the authenticity of the texts but said “even if the texts are authentic, they clearly read as self-deprecating and satirical humor.”) Ingrassia has since been offered a job at the General Services Administration.

In their letters to the White House and DHS, Blumenthal and Peters wrote that Ingrassia’s “behavior raises grave questions regarding the independence and impartiality of federal law enforcement operations and the White House’s potential meddling in such investigations.” The letters, first reported by Politico, asked whether Ingrassia’s decision to intervene was made at the direction of other White House personnel, who at DHS knew of the intervention and what DHS did in response.

The senators gave DHS a Dec. 4 deadline to produce records of all communications between Ingrassia and other officials discussing the Tates. They sent a separate letter to DHS’ inspector general calling on him to open an investigation. Blumenthal, of Connecticut, is the ranking member on the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations; Peters, of Michigan, is the ranking member on the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

Ingrassia’s intervention on behalf of Andrew Tate and his brother, Tristan, caused alarm among DHS officials that they could be interfering with a federal investigation if they followed through with the instruction, according to interviews and screenshots of contemporaneous communications between officials.

The incident is the latest in a string of law enforcement matters where the Trump White House has inserted itself to help friends and target foes. Andrew Tate is one of the most prominent members of the so-called manosphere, a collection of influencers, podcasters and content creators who helped deliver young male voters to Trump.

It’s unclear why law enforcement wanted to examine the Tates’ electronic devices, what their analysis found or whether Ingrassia’s intervention hindered any investigation. The White House and DHS declined to answer questions about the incident.

The Tate brothers’ lawyer, Joseph McBride, told ProPublica he didn’t know what happened to the devices but that his clients have still not had them returned. His clients, he said, are innocent and there were no illicit materials on their electronics.

Ingrassia worked at McBride’s firm before joining the White House and was identified as a member of the firm’s legal team representing the Tates. In a brief interview with ProPublica, he denied trying to help the Tates, before hanging up. “There was no intervention. Nothing happened,” he said. “There was nothing.”

Ingrassia’s lawyer, Edward Paltzik, said in a text message: “Mr. Ingrassia never ordered that the Tate Brothers’ devices be returned to them, nor did he say — and nor would he have ever said — that such a directive came from the White House. This story is fiction, simply not true.”

When questioned about whether Ingrassia had asked, rather than ordered, authorities to return the devices, Paltzik declined to answer, explaining that “the word ‘ask’ is inappropriate because it is meaningless in this context. He either ordered something or he didn’t. And as I said, he did NOT order anything.”

No criminal charges have been filed against the brothers in the United States. Romanian authorities have accused them of operating a criminal group that trafficked women, including some who alleged the brothers led them to believe they were interested in relationships but instead forced the women into filming online pornographic videos. Prosecutors also said they were investigating allegations that the Tates trafficked minors. Andrew Tate was charged with rape. The Tates have denied the allegations, and the initial charges were sent back to prosecutors by a court because of procedural issues.

The Tates face similar allegations in Britain. Authorities there authorized a raft of charges against the brothers, including rape and human trafficking, based on allegations from three women. In 2024, arrest warrants were issued for the brothers, who have denied wrongdoing.

A woman has also sued the Tates in Florida, accusing them of luring her to Romania to coerce her into sex work. The Tates have denied the allegations, and last month a judge dismissed most of her claims but allowed for her to refile.

According to a former Donald Trump administration official, the White House is currently at work making it possible to rescind whistleblower protections if Trump or his inner circle are the ones targeted.

Appearing on MS NOW’s “The Weekend,” ex-DHS chief of staff Miles Taylor explained that what the Trump White House is proposing is “insane.”

After pointing out that he personally witnessed the president making illegal orders during his first term, he claimed the president now wants to handcuff whistleblowers like himself.

“I was there when he said we should shoot pregnant mothers in the legs who were coming in migrant caravans to the border,” he recalled. “He basically wanted us to shoot innocent civilians in the legs. All illegal orders, all things that we refused. This man is a category five hurricane of illegality, and that's why there needs to be efforts to protect whistleblowers.”

“And so we announced grants to whistleblowers who need legal protection if they come forward, because this administration is trying to silence them,” he explained. “And this week, Jackie [Alemany], they said they were finalizing a rule —.”

“Who's they?” co-host Eugene Daniels interrupted.

“The White House is finalizing a rule to allow them to fire, punish and potentially prosecute people who expose illegal misconduct,” Taylor replied. “They are literally saying, we can rescind your protections. We can rescind your protections in the senior civil service. If you disclose that the president has broken the law."

"This is insane,” exclaimed. “We are in total banana republic territory. That's why groups like Defiance. org need to go out there and protect whistleblowers.”

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