Trump’s Gang of Criminals
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Trump’s Gang of Criminals
by William Kristol
“Remove justice, and what are kingdoms but gangs of criminals on a large scale?”
Augustine made this suggestion 1,600 years ago, in The City of God . Today, in the country of Trump, we’re getting a convincing demonstration of Augustine’s proposition. Justice has been removed and a gang of criminals are in charge.
They’re certainly acting on a large scale. Their expertise ranges from ordering war crimes to covering up sex crimes to engaging in all manner of financial criminality. They’re a diverse bunch, from tough guys outfitted in combat gear and masks rampaging through the streets of our cities, to smooth operators in tuxedoes who mingle with ease at state dinners. Their ranks encompass experienced criminals and newbies. They commit novel crimes and cover up old ones. Allies who had the misfortune to be caught—or were too bumbling to succeed—get pardons from the boss.
It’s all a veritable festival of law-scorning; an amazing smorgasbord of law-breaking. And it turns out that if a president aggressively shuns any concern for justice and is willing to demonstrate utter contempt for the law—if he then disables the Department of Justice and the judge advocates general and almost all other internal checks and mechanisms of accountability—his gang can get away with a heck of a lot. They don’t even have to shoot particularly straight.
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And so we have an administration that embraces and pursues criminality greedily and shamelessly. They’re so far unpunished, and there doesn’t seem to be much expectation that they will be punished.
Over Thanksgiving break, the Washington Post reported that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ordered a second firing on a suspected drug-running boat near Venezuela to ensure that the survivors clinging to the wreckage were killed.
Almost every serious person agrees with Andrew McCarthy of National Review and Fox News that, even without the second firing on the survivors, the three months of military strikes on the boats in the Caribbean are either “a war crime under federal law” or more likely simply “lawless.”
But, McCarthy stresses, even “if we stipulate arguendo that the administration has a colorable claim that our forces are in an armed conflict with non-state actors . . . the laws of war do not permit the killing of combatants who have been rendered hors de combat (out of the fighting)—including by shipwreck.”
In fact, every serious person knows that the second strike that reportedly took place to kill those two survivors of the original September 2 attack was illegal. Indeed, in its discussion of the duty to refuse illegal orders, the Department of Defense’s current law of war manual offers (in section 18.3.2.1) this instance of “Clearly Illegal Orders to Commit Law of War Violations:” “ For example, orders to fire upon the shipwrecked would be clearly illegal .”
Even President Trump gave a hint that he understood the problem when said last night that he would not have fired on the survivors. But he also said he didn’t know what happened and seemed pretty uninterested in finding out. And his secretary of defense hasn’t actually denied issuing that order. On Sunday evening, he put out a tweet with an AI-generated children’s book cover leaving the clear impression he’d do it again (see below).
Based on what we’ve seen over the past year, there will be no internal investigation or consequences. McCarthy himself emphasizes that “this is a very serious matter”—but seems to accept that nothing is going to happen because even were efforts made, “President Trump is undoubtedly going to pardon any administration officials in potential legal jeopardy.”
He’s probably correct. But are we simply stuck in this situation? Do we have no recourse? We have an utterly lawless administration both at home and abroad. Do we just have to live with it for at least three more years? And then hope the criminal gang permits free and fair elections?
Yes, the courts can do some things. But they have to wait for cases to come to them, and ultimately they have a limited ability to force the administration to change course.
There is one body in our system of government that could provide a recourse, that could make a difference: Congress. It may seem wishful to say—once again—that the rule of law depends on a Congress willing to assert its rightful authority and to hold the executive accountable. It may seem wishful to implore—once again—Republican members of Congress to put country and Constitution over party and political convenience. But could the wish finally be father to the thought?
It was somewhat heartening to see the Republican chairmen of the Senate and House Armed Services Committees join the Democratic ranking members in expressing alarm at the reports of the killing of the survivors. They said they were going to look into what happened. We’ll see how far they’re really willing to go.
And we’ll see if, perhaps, as they explore accountability in that one arena, they’ll dip their toes into the many others. We’ll see if anyone is willing to act against the mind-boggling and pervasive grift of Trump and cronies, and their subordination of foreign and domestic policies to their own personal financial interests. We’ll see if they push back against the rampant use of the pardon power in return for what are effectively bribes. We’ll see if they’re willing to treat this White House for what it truly is: a hot bed of corruption; a grift operation wrapped in the emblems of the state.
Not to try to stop the reckless criminality of this administration is to collude in it. It is to accept the collapse of our experiment in republican self-government into rule by a lawless gang.
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Obviously, extant Trump supporters do not care. If they did, they would turn from defending Trump to making rational, objective, well-earned criticism.
Support for Trump, albeit waning, remains the key problem with contemporary politics.
Trump will not ever stop and say "I want to be normal now". In terms of his behavior he can only get worse. He is a sick man.
They have knot the capability to tie Trump to his lawless administration and actions, leaving US slipping without tractions, to gain grounds lost to the POS in Chief, cause good grief, what else can be criminally done that doesn't call for relief, that they won't excuse and allow, cause just wow, asz this needs to end now, asz in yearz ago, cause Trump enablers do blow.
One can only hope and prey, the GOP is gone.
Shirking their duties in an attempted power grab, leaving US All to pay the tab, asz they are one giant back stab, whose time is runnin out, as they deserve to rot in He'll be remembered for what they silently aloud in such volume, it should be plastered on their collective tomb, a time to honor those that dish it out, from death to the womb