Will Donald Trump Ever Be Held Accountable for His Crimes?
Trump should be immediately impeached for a third time. (1,500 words)
On January 3, Donald Trump sent the US military into a foreign country to kidnap its leader, Nicolás Maduro. He did this without congressional approval, in violation of US constutional law, and in blatant violation of international law. Kidnapping Maduro is itself a crime with which Trump — a twice-impeached convicted felon who never served time for his past criminal behavior — could and should be held to account.
Pam Bondi announced that Maduro is facing charges of “narco-terrorism” (and possessing “Machineguns” [sic], as if MAGA folks suddenly care about gun control), despite the fact that Trump recently pardoned the ex-Honduran president who was tried and convicted of drug trafficking. Prior to this, Trump also pardoned “Ross Ulbricht, who operated Silk Road, the dark web marketplace where illegal drugs were sold,” not to mention the insurrectionists who broke into Congress and chanted “hang Mike Pence.”
After tearing down 1/3 of the White House in violation of “multiple federal laws,” Trump is now working from home, at Mar-a-Lago, where he established a makeshift Situation Room to monitor the US’s illegal military intervention in Venezuela. Pictures of our kakistocratic leaders seem to show the social media website X displayed on a big screen with “Venezuela” typed into the search bar. Laughable amateur-hour stuff.
Meanwhile, some folks have been sharing AI-generated videos of Venezuelans celebrating Maduro’s kidnapping. The video below is a deepfake:
There are reports of some Venezuelans in the US expressing approval of Trump’s illegal order, but no sane person thinks the Trump administration gives a sh*t about the citizens of Venezuela: over the past year, Trump has specifically targeted Venezuelans — including those who committed no crimes — shipping them without due process to the CECOT concentration camp in El Salvador, where they have been beaten, assaulted, and tortured. Furthermore, Trump is explicit that one reason for kidnapping Maduro and taking over Venezuela for the foreseeable future is oil. He’s not even pretending, as George W. Bush did in 2003, that this is about spreading democracy and bettering the lives of oppressed people.
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All of this serves an additional, diversionary purpose: to distract from the Epstein files. As we all know, Trump was best buddies with Epstein, according to Epstein himself. Epstein even says that Trump had sex with Melania for the first time on the Lolita Express. Elon Musk — the Nazi-saluting mega-billionaire who entered the US as an illegal immigrant and has himself been accused of sexual misconduct — called it last summer when he said that Trump’s name is all over the Epstein files. The situation in Venezuela provides a nice distraction from the administration’s fumbling of these files, which it failed to release in accordance with legislation passed by Congress.
Incidentally, Musk’s chatbot Grok just “apologized” for having generated sexualized photos of underaged girls in response to a user’s prompt. Sigh.
It’s hard to believe that this is reality. The mind-bending absurdity of the predicament is beyond parody. If someone had pitched a script 20 years ago that accurately described everything that’s happening right now, it would have been roundly rejected by Hollywood producers for being wildly unrealistic, fantastical, and ludicrous.
Again: our president is a twice-impeached convicted felon who just order the illegal kidnapping of a foreign leader in his home country for engaging in the very same thing that Trump just pardoned someone else for — the ex-Honduran leader. As one person put it, this is nothing more than “international gangsterism.” And don’t think for a moment that Cuba, Greenland, and even Canada aren’t next. In fact, Steven Miller’s wife just tweeted this image:
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One of the main reasons that some scholars previously rejected the description of Trump as “fascist” was that fascism is characteristically expansionist, and Trump repeatedly suggested that the US should mind its own business. Trump was even described as the “anti-war” candidate, in contrast to Kamala Harris:
What a complete joke! Trump has imperialist ambitions just like every other war criminal who’s occupied the Oval Office — though the ambitions of Trump 2.0 seem to be even more flagrant and egregious than those of past presidents. Again, Trump is literally saying that the US will now “run” Venezuela and seize its oil reserves. He even explicitly suggested that Mexico might be next:
I’m reminded of a 2013 global survey in which respondents were asked to identify the countries they see as posing the greatest threat to world peace. By far, people voted the US as the greatest threat to world peace, over North Korea, Iran, China, etc. We are a menace in the world — the history of US imperialism and interventionism is stunning and extensive. We’ve been involved in about 200 military interventions in foreign countries since 1950.
We’ve supported dictators, installed dictators, overthrown democratic governments, assassinated world leaders, and so on. Our foreign policy has destabilized large regions of the world, caused millions of civilian deaths, and started vicious wars that enabled terrorist organizations like ISIS to emerge and flourish. According to one study, the “US provides military assistance to 73 percent of [the] world’s dictatorships.” On top of all that, the US is the greatest source, historically, of heat-trapping carbon emissions, triggering a climate crisis that now threatens the very existence of our modern global civilization. What a legacy.
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As many noted on social media, Trump’s annexation (?) of Venezuela opens the door for other countries to take similar actions — think of Russia and Ukraine.
One person insightfully asked: given that Benjamin Netanyahu is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes and crimes against humanity, is it now okay for a foreign country to send a military squad into Jerusalem and kidnap Netanyahu, thus delivering him to the ICC? Others made similar observations:
In a New Yorker interview, Yale law professor Oona Hathaway was asked about Trump’s claim that Maduro isn’t the legitimate ruler of Venezuela. This matters because legitimacy provides sovereign immunity, meaning that if Maduro isn’t legitimate, he can be swooped up by the US and tried in US courts. The interviewer says: “The idea that Trump can basically decide who is the head of state of a given country is absurd and terrifying to me.” To which Hathaway responds:
It’s an area of law that is unsettled and can create real problems. The dangerous thing here is the idea that a President can just decide that a leader is not legitimate and then invade the country and presumably put someone in power who is favored by the Administration. If that were the case, that’s the end of international law, that’s the end of the U.N. charter, that’s the end of any kind of legal limits on the use of force. And if the President can do that, what’s to stop a Russian leader from doing it, or a Chinese leader from doing it, or anyone with the power to do so? We’ve been supporting Ukraine, and its war against Russia, and Putin has been making very much the same argument about Zelensky.
Oddly enough, Ukraine — like many other European countries — is expressing some degree of support for Trump’s illegal order. Very disappointing.
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Where does this leave us? As Nathan Robinson of Current Affairs writes:
I fully agree. Trump should be impeached a third time for this illegal foreign policy blunder and the blatant corruption that motivated it. Unfortunately, I suspect that Trump will get away with this just as he’s evaded justice for his entire adult life. The guy is Teflon.1
Thanks for reading and I’ll see you on the other side!
You know, I unfortunately live in a household where Fox News plays constantly and last night something caught my eye: It was a little discussion between a former Security Adviser to Trump and one of Fox’s lackies while a little bar appeared at the bottom:
“Trump: U.S will sell Venezuelan Oil”
And while I looked at that, those to people were smiling and happily talking about Trump doing that. It was never about drugs, or even getting rid of a, I may personally argue terrible President…it was about classic Imperialism. Just getting rid of people we don’t like to get things we already have. Plus there are talks of the U.S maybe even occupying Venezuela.
I hope Trump sees justice, but I also hope the average Trump supporter and even general American realizes that if the U.S wants to move forward in history, we have to stop acting like the Watchdog of the World.
it would be helpful to understand the premise, which is the indictment.
there is a “legal” indictment which is why maduro ( which means ripe in spanish), is rotting in a nasty nasty cold rodent infested cell about two miles from my cozy apt.
the indictment states that he is being charged with running a drug cartel whose products reach the shores of usa, harming its citizens. ( think el chapo, who is sitting or sat in same “residence” as is mr ripe as we speak).
the indictment states ”allows” pete “pompadour” hegseth, to go grab him because he poses a threat to us citizens. now, people may think it’s bs, but that’s a moot point because indictment= trial.
for now, the vice president appears to be in charge, so as of now, the govt has not been “regime change”.
as i see it there are other factors in agent orange, pompadour hegseth, and small hands-hugest-ears-to listen to donald rubio, to dip into venezuela:
geographic long term control to stem china growth-china has been very focused on investing in the region for years- notice few outlets actually go beyond mention of the chinese delegation present during kidnapping; why were they there? i just said why.
china is in fact, because it is not running around sword in hand feeding the us military complex, making big advances in every area of, well, every area.
once agent orange and the other two stooges get in, they will replace any chinese contracts with the leadership of nudnick-lutnick ( who lost his entire company on 9/11 but he was taking his kid to school, and well, nyc traffic is sometimes controlled by satan.
i won’t mention the main reason of the timing except to say the protagonist used to wear orange and is now rip with neck bruises.
also: venezuela has prime prime coast line and i wonder what donny might want to put there…i just read that some 20 deep pocket investors already bough round trip no stops tickets.
the oil part is right: biggest oil deposits albeit a heavier oil that needs more refining but still bigger than saudis.
ps: as an interesting close, i’ll share a conversation i had with a friend who is a cattleman near the venezuela border:
“ the cows sense when conflict is near, they begin running in unusual patterns and otherwise inactive animals become nervous”
i love cows.