Here it is, straight from your CNN:When Kelly and his pals were repeatedly asked to name a single illegal order that prompted their stupid little video stunt, it immediately flopped. They had no answer. Trump should have just let them eat their own shit rather than take the bait, IMO.
. . . Trump has repeatedly proposed doing things – with the military and otherwise – that appear to be illegal. People who served with him have said he suggested illegal action. And Trump is certainly testing the bounds of the law with his use of the military even as we speak.
The big example right now is Trump’s strikes on alleged drug vessels in the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean – strikes that have killed more than 80 people without a legal process. . . .
CNN has reported that both the United Nations and top allies like the United Kingdom regard the strikes as illegal extrajudicial killings. Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky has echoed those claims, while other GOP senators have questioned their legality as well. The administration has also declined to publicly detail its legal justification, even as the Justice Department has produced a classified legal opinion authorizing the strikes. It has released survivors of the strikes who, if they had been kept in US custody, could have forced it to defend itself in court. Also, a top commander who CNN has reported raised questions about the legality of the strikes is now retiring early.
There is a very real question about whether the servicemembers involved in those strikes are carrying out illegal orders. And the administration has proactively avoided a more robust legal process that could settle that question.
But that’s hardly all. Here are some other key data points:
During the 2016 campaign, Trump floated having the military torture people and kill terrorists’ families. When it was posited that troops would not follow such illegal orders, Trump responded: “If I say do it, they’re gonna do it.” (He later backed off, saying he would not order people to violate international law.)
In 2020, Trump told Iran that the United States was prepared to strike Iranian cultural sites, which would likely have been considered a war crime if carried out.
In 2018, Trump’s first secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, said publicly after his departure that Trump had repeatedly tried to do illegal things.
In 2019, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen resigned after clashing with Trump over his repeated desires to do things she thought might be illegal.
Former Trump Defense Secretary Mark Esper has said Trump in 2020 floated having the military shoot racial-justice protesters demonstrating near the White House in the legs.
A series of judges this year have indicated the administration has flouted or violated court orders with its deportations or its use of the National Guard on domestic soil.
Those National Guard deployments represent an extraordinary use of the military, the legality of which is still being sorted out in courtrooms across the country.