President Donald Trump may have put his administration “in a box” over the strikes against alleged drug boats in international waters, according to one CNN analyst.
The administration has conducted more than 20 strikes against alleged drug dealers and killed about 100 people in those operations, according to reports. Trump has argued that the strikes are a matter of national security, although experts say his administration has provided scant evidence to support that claim.
Abby Phillip, who hosts CNN’s nightly show “NewsNight,” discussed the strikes on Tuesday’s broadcast of “Anderson Cooper 360.”
“It makes me wonder if there was a conversation in the Pentagon about what happened in this first instance,” Phillip said. “The Trump administration has dug itself into a bit of a hole because by having Karoline Leavitt, the press secretary, come out and then say, ‘We believe he was in his legal authority, this admiral, this legal authority to carry out this strike.’ They’re endorsing it. They’re endorsing it before there’s been an investigation into the legality of it. And I think that puts them in a bit of a box.”
Legal experts have questioned the legality of the strikes, with some suggesting that they amount to extrajudicial killings. The Department of Justice has released little information justifying the strikes. One memo obtained by The Guardian suggests the DOJ is relying on Trump’s word to form its legal opinion of the strikes.
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