One must hand it to President Donald Trump and the coteries of enablers and users surrounding him.
Even when they’re attempting to justify some outrageous act on his or their part, they always find a way to indict themselves. They just can’t help it.
The attack on Venezuela — a sovereign nation — and the seizure of corrupt and venal Venezuelan strong man Nicolás Maduro and his wife is but the latest example.
Trump’s apologists in his administration and among the Republican caucuses in Congress have done their best to argue that the bombing and assault in which at least 40 Venezuelans were killed was not a military action — which would have required congressional approval — but a law-enforcement exercise.
The president’s mouthpieces said he was within his constitutional powers to arrest the Maduros because they had committed crimes against the United States and their own people. This justified the violation of another nation’s borders and the overthrow of that nation’s government, the half-fast constitutional scholars argued.
As legal reasoning goes, that’s barely above “the-dog-ate-my-homework” levels of arguing and persuading. At least, though, it provided a fig leaf of justification for what any reasonable person would have seen as an act of war.
Trump, as usual, refused to stick to the script, maybe because he hadn’t even bothered to read it.
In his rambling and often incomprehensible explanation of the attack, he didn’t talk about how he and his administration were playing global police officer.
No, he focused on Venezuela’s oil production and reserves — resources Trump made clear that he wanted.
So, he decided just to take them.
And he boasted that the United States was going to “run Venezuela” for a while.
It’s at times like this that Trump’s odd bromance with Russia’s thuggish, murderous leader, Vladimir Putin, makes the most sense.
Trump’s reasoning for assaulting Venezuela is remarkably similar to Putin’s for invading Ukraine.
There was something they wanted. They saw an opportunity to get it. So, they took it.
Might makes right.
There’s a reason the International Criminal Court has charged Putin with war crimes, and an arrest warrant has been issued for him. That’s why, when the Russian thug flew to Alaska to meet with Trump last year, there were calls in the United States and from around the world for the administration to arrest Putin as soon as he stepped off the plane.
Trump and his supporting cast argued then that it would be wrong to do that to a head of state — an argument they either forgot or ignored when it came to Maduro.
Instead, Trump’s cleanup crew has tried to argue the law enforcement angle.
But even that creates problems for them and for the president.
After all, if lawbreaking on the part of a head of state provides justification for violating another nation’s sovereignty, then the president’s own defenders have made a case for other nations to attempt to hold him accountable.
Unlike Maduro, Trump is a convicted felon. He also has been found liable by another court of committing sexual assault.
Had he not won the presidency in 2024, Trump also would have faced irrefutable evidence that he attempted to rig the 2020 election. And, of course, his role in killing people in Venezuelan seacraft — even when they have tried to surrender — has earned accusations from around the globe that he has violated both U.S. and international law.
So, if having evidence — even overwhelmingly compelling evidence — that a nation’s leader has violated either that nation’s or international laws provides an acceptable excuse for attacking the country and capturing the leader, then other nations now have a rationale for coming after us and our president.
And Trump’s own team provided that rationale.
Nothing good will come of this.
Maduro was and is an evil man.
But so, for that matter, is Putin. So are many other leaders around the world.
Trump, though, made clear that the issue wasn’t lawbreaking. He’s provided ample evidence that breaking the law doesn’t really bother him.
No, the reason we went into Venezuela — and the reason we may be stuck there for quite some time — is that Venezuela had something we wanted.
Our president decided to take it.
We Americans have assets other nations would like.
Doubtless, those nations are grateful for this new Trump doctrine: Whatever you’re strong enough to take, you’re entitled to have.