Trump Boat Bombings Take Dark, Unnerving Turn with Leaked Memo Stunner
As the Times delicately notes, administration lawyers have “accepted at face value the White House’s version of reality.” It’s circular reasoning, of course. But I want to highlight another revelation about the memo, per sources who have seen it and who spoke to the Times:
A lengthy section at the end of the memo, they said, offers potential legal defenses if a prosecutor were to charge administration officials or troops for involvement in the killings. Everyone in the chain of command who follows orders that comply with the laws of war has battlefield immunity, the memo says, because it is an armed conflict.
In other words, administration lawyers appear to be preemptively laying out arguments for why people down the chain of command are acting legally in carrying out these orders. Where does the need for this extra step come from, exactly?
Representative Adam Smith, ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, says it’s not typical for such a memo to offer an affirmative legal shield against future prosecution. After all, the memo itself is supposed to explain why the actions are legal, so that line would appear superfluous.
