Tuesday on MSNBC’s “Deadline,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-CA) said the Trump administration’s military strikes on alleged drug boats in the eastern Pacific were a “lawless operation.”
Host Alicia Menendez said, “This news today, 14 more people killed in us strikes on alleged drug boats. This is the 11th incident that we know about. What does this administration’s ever evolving legal rationale for what they are doing tell you about what they are actually up to?”
Raskin said, “Well, there’s no legal rationale for it. Congress has not declared war on drug boats in the eastern Pacific, nor is this a legitimate police action. The president is not himself, the police, the prosecutor, the judge, the jury and the executioner. And it’s a terrifying logic there, you know, advancing to the world. Because if they can do it in the eastern Pacific, why can’t they do it off of the coast of California? Why can’t they do it in the waterways of America? So it’s a lawless operation. Only Congress can declare war and we have law enforcement bounded by all of the rules of due process, the presumption of innocence, prosecution, and so on, that the president himself has afforded himself of when he’s been prosecuted for crimes he’s committed.”
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