The personnel decisions of the Trump national security regime provide a key to better understanding the actions and decision-making of the administration.<\/p>\n
UPDATED<\/strong>: 5PM ET, 12\/1\/2025 Added reports on the Trump admin\u2019s denials and Rep. Ro Khanna\u2019s announcement of a bipartisan Armed Services Committee into Hegseth\u2019s actions. Updates at end of post.<\/em><\/p>\n The stupid doesn\u2019t just happen, it\u2019s made to happen.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s focus on one named player at a time and give a quick summary of their recent antics and explain how they fit into the larger Trump national security regime.<\/p>\n Pete Hegseth on the Hook?<\/strong><\/p>\n Let\u2019s start with Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. <\/p>\n I\u2019ve covered Secretary Pete previously in such pieces as \u201cAmway Oligarchy and Trump\u2019s Willing Figureheads<\/a>\u201d from July and October\u2019s \u201cShutdown, Clampdown, Clownshow or Horror Movie?<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n Hegseth was nominated and confirmed to serve as Secretary of Defense, but in September POTUS Trump<\/a> \u201cfirst announced a proposed name change in early September when he signed an executive order that authorized Hegseth to adopt the title \u201csecretary of war\u201d and to use \u201cDepartment of War\u201d in official correspondence and public communications.\u201d<\/p>\n NBC reports that making the name change officially official will possibly cost up to $2 billion and the next steps require the Pentagon to \u201csubmit paperwork to the National Security Council that would move the process forward to formally and legally provide Congress with what it needs to consider the name change.\u201d<\/p>\n Regardless of the legal niceties, Politico reports<\/a> that the military industrial lobby is on board with the change, as are most Republicans in congress. <\/p>\n Senator Angus King (I-ME) is a notable hold out, calling the name change \u201cone more usurpation of the power of Congress.\u201d<\/p>\n With the important stuff out of the way, let\u2019s turn our attention to allegations of war crimes against Secretary Pete.<\/p>\n The below is in reference to attacks by the U.S. Navy on various boats off the Venezuelan coast. We\u2019ve covered that threatened conflict many times previously (see here<\/a> and here<\/a>). <\/p>\n The Washington Post broke<\/a> the story on Friday:<\/p>\n Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave a spoken directive, according to two people with direct knowledge of the operation. \u201cThe order was to kill everybody,\u201d one of them said.<\/p>\n A missile screamed off the Trinidad coast, striking the vessel and igniting a blaze from bow to stern. For minutes, commanders watched the boat burning on a live drone feed. As the smoke cleared, they got a jolt: Two survivors were clinging to the smoldering wreck.<\/p>\n The Special Operations commander overseeing the Sept. 2 attack \u2014 the opening salvo in the Trump administration\u2019s war on suspected drug traffickers in the Western Hemisphere \u2014 ordered a second strike to comply with Hegseth\u2019s instructions, two people familiar with the matter said. The two men were blown apart in the water.<\/p>\n Hegseth\u2019s order, which has not been previously reported, adds another dimension to the campaign against suspected drug traffickers. Some current and former U.S. officials and law-of-war experts have said that the Pentagon\u2019s lethal campaign \u2014 which has killed more than 80 people to date \u2014 is unlawful and may expose those most directly involved to future prosecution.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Unfortunately for Hegseth, the umbrage on this one is bipartisan, if you count former Intelligence Committee Chair Mike Turner (R-OH) as a Republican, that is.<\/p>\n House Speaker Mike Johnson removed Turner from the Committee in January<\/a> when the current Trump national security regime took power. <\/p>\n When asked about the alleged \u201cshoot to kill\u201d orders on CBS\u2019 Face the Nation<\/a>, Turner responded, \u201cObviously, if that occurred, that would be- be very serious, and I agree that- that- that would- would be an illegal act.\u201d<\/p>\n Turner also clarified that the incident is \u201ccompletely outside of anything that has been discussed with Congress.\u201d<\/p>\n Democratic Senators Tim Kaine and Mark Kelly were more emphatic in their condemnations, per the NYT<\/a>, of what Hegseth is alleged to have done.<\/p>\n Kelly is one of six Democratic lawmakers who appeared in a TV ad \u201curging current military and intelligence personnel to \u2018refuse illegal orders,\u2019 adding, \u2018no one has to carry out orders that violate the law or our Constitution.’\u201d<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s response to that ad was to accuse the lawmakers of \u2018seditious behavior,\u2019<\/a> a charge that the president said could be \u2018punishable by death,\u2019 although he later walked back<\/a> the death threats.<\/p>\n But that didn\u2019t stop the FBI from reaching out to the seditious six<\/a> (Sen. Kelly plus Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan and Reps. Jason Crow of Colorado, Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire, and Chris Deluzio and Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania) and attempting to schedule a good time to question them. <\/p>\n We\u2019ll come back to Kash Patel and his Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), but let\u2019s stick around coup country for a bit first.<\/p>\n New Information Emerges About 2020 Venezuelan Coup Attempt<\/strong><\/p>\n One of the more hapless chapters of Trump\u2019s first term in office was the attempt to install the virtually unknown nominal Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaid\u00f3 into power.<\/p>\n New court filings obtained by The Gray Zone<\/a> indicate that \u201cHigh-ranking Trump officials including Elliot Abrams, John Bolton, the top CIA official in Latin America, and a top NSC advisor appeared to know about his invasion plot, and may have been involved in its planning.\u201d<\/p>\n Among other things, the filings also expose \u201ca proposal delivered to VP Pence\u2019s office included plans to conduct \u2018alse flag\u201d operations in Venezuela, spread hepatitis within the country\u2019s military, and fund the schemes through the \u201cexpropriation\u201d of \u201cdrug product.\u201d<\/p>\n The American Prospect has more<\/a> details on that caper:<\/p>\n \u2026a pitch deck<\/a> obtained in discovery, which was produced for then-Vice President Mike Pence by a group called \u201cVirtual Democracy.\u201d It outlined a detailed 29-page regime change proposal consisting of sabotage plans including \u201ccontamination with hepatitis (A, B and C), influenza, measles and piglet to the social clubs where the top officials of the narco-regime meet\u201d and \u201cforced stoppage of public and private transport in all forms\u201d that would culminate in the replacement of the Bolivaran constitution with a \u201csimple federalist constitutional text that prohibits communism and socialism,\u201d with training to commence on a North Carolina training camp operated by Constellis, formerly known as Blackwater.<\/p>\n That plan never got off the ground, perhaps because it required the Treasury Department to grant the plotters \u201ca Swift clearance passport from the US government to transfer accounts of the US government an approximate amount of US $14,500,000,000 in assets expropriated from the narco-regime and make it available to Virtual Democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n But don\u2019t cry for Elliot Abrams, Argentina or Venezuela or anywhere else, the old chancer is keeping busy and still finding big platforms<\/a> for his obsessive coup d\u2019etat rantings.<\/p>\n pic.twitter.com\/noUd63fedW<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Nat Wilson Turner (@natwilsonturner) December 1, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Whether or not this iteration of the Trump national security regime presses forward with their bad intentions for Venezuela, Trump\u2019s been busy just a little bit north of there, in Honduras.<\/p>\n Trump Pardons Honduran Narco-Pol<\/strong><\/p>\n At the end of November, POTUS Trump posted the news to Truth social that he would be pardoning former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hern\u00e1ndez. He also strongly endorsed Nasry \u201cTito\u201d Asfura, the current standard bearer for Hern\u00e1ndez\u2019 right-wing National Party. <\/p>\n pic.twitter.com\/IzcqBERSbJ<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Nat Wilson Turner (@natwilsonturner) December 1, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Hern\u00e1ndez was convicted<\/a> in a New York court in 2024 \u201cof taking bribes during his campaign from Joaqu\u00edn Guzm\u00e1n, the notorious former leader of the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico known as \u2018El Chapo\u2019, and of running his Central American country like a narco state.\u201d <\/p>\n Hern\u00e1ndez had been sentenced to serve 45 years in American prison.<\/p>\n His brother Juan Antonio Hern\u00e1ndez was sentenced to life<\/a> in prison March 30, 2021 in New York for trafficking tons of cocaine to the United States over 14 years. <\/p>\n Maybe Hern\u00e1ndez made a very good choice in who he hired to lobby on his behalf in Trump\u2019s first term, as VICE reported at the time<\/a>:<\/p>\n (Hern\u00e1ndez) signed a deal with a Washington lobbying firm called BGR Group to buttress his image as a dedicated ally and an implacable foe of organized crime. <\/p>\n Although BGR presents itself as a bipartisan firm, it has inextricable ties to the Republican Party. The company was co-founded by former Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour. Its current team includes prominent Republicans, such as former Representative Sean Duffy, a Wisconsin Republican, and Trump Administration State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert, who is on the firm\u2019s advisory board. <\/p>\n BGR has also given more than $1 million to candidates for federal office in each of the last three election cycles, with roughly 90 percent of its contributions going to Republicans. Rubio is among the top beneficiaries of BGR generosity, and he has benefited from the company\u2019s largesse throughout his career, including BGR-hosted fundraisers during both his 2010 and 2016 Senate campaigns and his short-lived presidential bid. <\/p>\n Protestors celebrate outside the US Southern District of New York on March 30, 2021 after Juan Antonio \u201cTony\u201d Hernandez, brother of the president of Honduras Juan Orlando Hernandez was sentenced to life for drug trafficking.<\/p>\n Immediately after taking on Honduras as a client -a contract which earned BGR $660,000 last year \u2013 according to mandated disclosures, BGR Group reached out to 11 Congressional staffers. Three of them worked or had worked for Rubio. <\/p>\n Later in the year, BGR lobbied the Development Finance Corporation, an arm of the U.S. government that connects developing countries with private investors. And throughout the year, the company attempted to improve the President\u2019s image by circulating press releases to journalists from dozens of different news outlets, including VICE, detailing the head of state\u2019s activities. BGR sent out three different press releases in October about Hern\u00e1ndez: two about a trip he took to the United States, and one about joint U.S.-Honduras counternarcotics operations.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n But Trump is a look-forward-not-back kind of guy and is presumably happy that Asfura currently holds a slim lead in the elections with over 60% counted so far<\/a>.<\/p>\n But the Trump National Security Regime has a domestic component as well and this week FBI Director Kash Patel is drawing lots of attention.<\/p>\n Patel Blasted in the NY Post<\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s one thing when a Trump official is excoriated on CNN or in the New York Times, but when the Rupert Murdoch-owned New York Post runs with an ugly headline, that\u2019s a different matter entirely.<\/p>\n Yesterday\u2019s Miranda Devine column headlined, \u201cDamning report labels FBI \u2018rudderless ship\u2019 under Kash Patel \u2014 with him and Dan Bongino more concerned with building \u2018personal r\u00e9sum\u00e9s\u2019<\/a>\u201d would be bad for a more polished official with a broader base of support, for podcaster-turned-FBI-head Kash Patel, it\u2019s potentially ruinous.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s a taste:<\/p>\n A troubling new report card<\/a> on the first six months of Patel\u2019s leadership concludes he is \u201cin over his head\u201d and his deputy, Dan Bongino, is \u201csomething of a clown,\u201d according to the alliance, which in two previous reports warned about crippling DEI and politicization of the FBI during the Biden administration.<\/p>\n The Patel-led FBI is described in the 115-page report as a \u201crudderless ship\u201d and \u201call f\u2013ked up.\u201d The case of the \u201cmedium-sized raid jacket\u201d is one example.<\/p>\n On Sept. 11, 2025, the day after Kirk was assassinated, Patel flew into Provo, Utah, on the FBI jet but \u201cwould not disembark from the plane without an FBI raid jacket,\u201d according to ALPHA 99, a \u201chighly respected\u201d source who has served in the FBI for multiple decades.<\/p>\n \u201cPatel apparently did not have his own FBI raid jacket with him and refused to step from the plane without wearing one,\u201d according to the report. Patel would not leave the plane \u201cuntil he had two patches to cover those areas\u201d so \u201cmembers of an FBI SWAT Team took patches off their uniforms and ran those patches over to\u201d Patel \u201cat the airport. The patches were then attached to the loaner FBI raid jacket\u201d and Patel \u201cdisembarked from the plane.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n The report builds on negative headlines garnered by Patel for assigning an elite SWAT-team to protect his girlfriend<\/a> Alexis Wilkins, a 27-year-old aspiring country singer and for allegedly misusing a private jet to pay visits to Wilkins when she works<\/a>. <\/p>\n The allegations against Patel seem quite minor in comparison to the potential war crimes being notched against Pete Hegseth\u2019s ledger and certainly nothing compared to those against the former Honduran president.<\/p>\n But for the sake of everyone working in the Trump national security regime, one hopes the POTUS is keeping his pardon pen sharp and filled with ink for any late term rescues that need to be issued before the whole thing comes a cropper, presuming it does.<\/p>\n UPDATE:<\/strong> 5PM ET, 12\/1\/2025<\/p>\n The Wall Street Journal reports<\/a>:<\/p>\n The White House attempted to defuse a growing controversy over an attack on an alleged drug boat in September, saying an admiral who ordered a second strike that is reported to have killed two survivors had acted legally under authority granted him by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.<\/p>\n The Sept. 2 strike on the boat in the Caribbean\u2014part of a continuing U.S. campaign against what the administration says is a terrorist drug-trafficking organization emanating from Venezuela\u2014was the first in a series of such deadly attacks and drew renewed scrutiny over the weekend. On Monday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed the second strike while defending the actions, saying, \u201cSecretary Hegseth authorized Admiral Bradley to conduct these kinetic strikes. Admiral Bradley worked well within his authority and the law, directing the engagement to ensure the boat was destroyed, and the threat to the United States of America was eliminated.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) says there is a major investigation coming:<\/p>\n \ud83d\udea8 Congressman Ro Khanna confirms that they are about to announce an “unprecedented” bipartisan Armed Services investigation into Pete Hegseth. pic.twitter.com\/iAMjHiXwZu<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Aaron Parnas (@AaronParnas) December 1, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n
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The report was written in the style of an official FBI intelligence assessment, analyzing reports from 24 FBI sources and sub-sources, and using anecdotes to illustrate troubling themes.<\/p>\n
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When a jacket belonging to a female agent was delivered to Patel on the plane, he complained that \u201ctwo areas on the upper sleeves did not have Velcro patches attached.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
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President Trump said Sunday that Hegseth told him that he didn\u2019t issue the \u201ckill everybody\u201d order, but that hasn\u2019t quelled the controversy and has prompted bipartisan calls from Congress for investigations. Trump added that he didn\u2019t know anything about the attack sequence and that he believed Hegseth. \u201cPete said he did not order the death of those two men,\u201d Trump told reporters. \u201cAnd I believe him.\u201d Asked about the survivors being targeted, Trump told reporters, \u201cI wouldn\u2019t have wanted that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
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