Why one Trump official is sending some Republicans running for the hills

When I interviewed Sanho Tree, I wanted to discuss a recent CNN report. Apparently, in 2016, when Pete Hegseth was still a Fox anchor, he said military personnel should refuse to obey unlawful orders.

I wanted to talk to Tree, who is a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, about the hypocrisy of saying one thing when the president is Barack Obama and another when the president is Donald Trump.

That’s mostly what we discussed (see below) – until the last question.

That’s when Tree characterized the September boat bombing as a much bigger deal. “I think this policy of murdering civilians goes much deeper in this administration. … This was a conspiracy to commit murder and that's how it should be investigated,” Tree told me.

I’m putting up front this concept of a conspiracy to commit murder, because of what the Postreported today – details from a meeting in October between congressional leaders and military officials on the killing of suspected drug runners in the Caribbean near Venezuela.

Evidently, the Pentagon did not send any lawyers to explain the legal basis for the boat attacks. (There have been nearly 20 since the first one on September 2.) The Department of Defense could not explain the mission’s “strategy or scope.” Leading Republicans complained about receiving more transparency from the Biden administration. Alabama Congressman Mike Rogers, who is chair of the House Armed Services Committee, was critical of the Pentagon’s “secrecy.”

Yet despite the “secrecy,” Admiral Frank Bradley, who was in charge of the September 2 bombing, is expected to tell lawmakers during a classified briefing today “that he considered the survivors viable targets, not shipwrecked, defenseless mariners,” the Post reported.

What was the legal basis for his decision that could not be explained by Pentagon lawyers? What was the “strategy or scope” of the mission that could not be explained by Department of Defense officials? Are lawmakers going to accept Bradley’s view or will they demand more?

The Post report went on to say that support of Hegseth by GOP congresspeople has “atrophied,” because his “ability to lead the department, some people argued, could be weakened even if Congress ends up clearing him of wrongdoing in the boat strike inquiries.”

It’s still not clear to me why Hegseth is in trouble. After all, he survived the Signal scandal. But the reason might be suggested in three ways.

One is that subsequent strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean did not “kill everybody,” as Hegseth had ordered. According to the Post, “in the strikes occurring since [September 2], the US military has rescued survivors or worked with other countries to attempt doing so.” Someone somewhere decided it was a bad idea to repeat the exercise.

Two is that Hegseth asked the man in charge of military operations in that part of the world to resign. According to a Wall Street Journal report published Wednesday, his argument with Admiral Alvin Holsey “began days after President Trump’s inauguration in January and intensified months later when Holsey had initial concerns about the legality of lethal strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean.”

Reading between the lines, Hegseth wanted Holsey to commit murder.

Admiral Holsey said no.

But Admiral Bradley said yes.

And finally, the idea of killing drug runners without due process of law had been in circulation throughout the regime since at least February. That’s when former Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, who is now a federal judge, said authorities shouldn’t bother ceasing drugs at sea anymore. “Just sink the boats," he said, according to NPR.

“Bove's remarks, which have not previously been publicly reported, suggest at least some members of the administration were considering this policy shift as early as six months before the boat strikes began.”

Put another way: a policy shift away from due process to murder.

When six congressional Democrats with backgrounds in national security came out with a video last month reminding military personnel of their obligation to refuse illegal orders, the response by the White House was excessive even by its own hysterical standards.

Donald Trump suggested that they should be executed for sedition. Pete Hegseth threatened to bring US Senator Mark Kelly, who is a retired Navy pilot, back into service in order to court martial him.

But the reaction might have been appropriate if the White House believed the six Democrats had learned about a conspiracy to commit murder and were getting ahead of news about it coming to light.

The Democrats released their video on Tuesday, November 18. Every day since then has brought headlines about illegal orders, putting the Democrats, especially Kelly, in a position of righteous indignation.

The indignation promises to rise even higher. At today’s classified briefing, lawmakers saw video of the first and second strikes on September 2. Washington Congressman Adam Smith, the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, told the New Republic’s Greg Sargent that: “It looks like two classically shipwrecked people.” It is a “highly questionable decision that these two people on that obviously incapacitated vessel were still in any kind of fight.”

I said Sanho Tree’s comment about the conspiracy to commit murder was the first thing about my interview with him that I wanted to bring to your attention. But the rest of the interview (see below) is also important, because it suggests the disgusting belief underlying the conspiracy: that murder is OK when Republicans are the ones doing it.

That’s going to come as a shock to a lot of Americans and every single Republican in the Congress knows it. That explains why some of them are following Mark Kelly’s lead and getting ahead of future bad news. Pete Hegseth has survived plenty of scandal so far. Can he survive this?

In 2016, Hegseth said the same thing that Mark Kelly and the other Democrats said -- that military personnel should not obey illegal orders. Why is it OK when he says it but not OK when Kelly says it?

Hegseth answered truthfully and now he's feigning ignorance so that his new stance comports to the whims of the Mad King. All policies in this administration cater to an audience of one. There is no sign of the old interagency process when stakeholders and agencies come to the table to give their best advice. It's all about kissing Trump's a--.

In his report, CNN's Andrew Kaczynski foregrounded the context. Hegseth made his remarks at the end of Obama's presidency. What's changed? he asked. The president, he said. What's your view on that?

The entire GOP has either reversed gear on their longheld beliefs to align with Trump or they've left the party to become Never Trumpers. It's certainly true in Congress. Marco Rubio is but one example.

Loyalty is at the heart of this. Under Obama, it was loyalty to the Constitution, not to the president. Under Trump, it's loyalty to the president, not the Constitution. Where is the honor in that?

Being craven is not honorable. I can see how one's views may evolve over time (and mine certainly have), but the GOP is doing so many 180-degree reversals in order to not contradict Donald Trump that there can be no honor when it's so deeply rooted in dishonesty.

Because of the difference between what Hegseth said under Obama and what he is saying under Trump, I should point out the obvious color of law for Hegseth. White is legal, thus deserving of loyalty. Black is illegal, thus undeserving of loyalty. Any reaction to that?

Take Trump's attacks on Somalis as a response to an attack by an Afghan refugee. Those countries have nothing to do with each other. Around 90 percent of Somalis in Minnesota are citizens. Republicans call them "illegals" and attack them because they aren't white.

Trump laid out his attack against people of color when he rode down that escalator in 2015. He always links immigrants to crime, the same way Nazis linked Jews to crime. Der Sturmer had a daily column in the 1930s that highlighted crimes committed by Jews. Trump set up a similar office in the White House in January 2017 to publicize immigrant crimes. I outlined his worldview back in 2018.

If Hegseth is forced to resign, how would that affect cabinet members? How would it affect government workers who fear retribution? Seems like the flood gates would open and cabinet members would have targets on their backs? What do you think?

I think this policy of murdering civilians goes much deeper in this administration. Trump started ranting about taking Venezuela's oil in 2017. White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller began asking about sinking boats in 2018. In February of this year, Emil Bove (now a federal judge) said we should “just sink the boats.” They actively sidelined critics and anyone else who raised any concerns. This was a conspiracy to commit murder and that's how it should be investigated.