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At a press conference on January 3, President Donald Trump announced that the United States had carried out strikes on Venezuela and captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. Trump alleged that Maduro oversaw the Cartel de los Soles and had sent members of the Tren de Aragua gang to the United States to terrorize Americans. Unlike previous U.S. presidents, who typically denied ulterior motives behind similarly brazen acts of regime change — such as access and exploitation to natural resources — Trump was explicit about the U.S.’s interest in Venezuelan oil. Notably absent from the press conference, which also featured remarks from Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan “Raizin” Caine, was any reference to the law or to what legal authority could possibly justify the strikes on Venezuela or the abduction of Maduro and Flores. Despite this absence of legal justification, Trump asserted that Maduro and his wife would “soon face the full might of American justice and stand trial on American soil.” In this conception of American “justice,” the contradiction of violating the law in order to achieve justice is something that the U.S. need not reckon with.

“Kill everybody” was the command that Hegseth reportedly issued on September 2 to authorize a double-tap strike on a Caribbean boat the U.S. claimed was carrying drug traffickers. As additional strikes followed, controversy escalated over whether the September 2 attack constituted a war crime — prompting both Democrats and some Republicans to call for a formal investigation. However, the discussion about whether or not a war crime had been committed allowed a central myth behind the U.S.’s murderous actions to be ignored — that is, that the U.S. was not at war with Venezuela. Thus, what was committed was a crime — and one that no one in the administration will presumably be held accountable for. This because the Trump administration has demonstrated over and over again that laws often function less as constraints than as optional guidelines for those in power. In an op-ed for The Hill titled “War is hell, but that should never excuse war crimes,” Marine Corps veteran Jos Joseph condemns Trump and Hegseth’s actions and points to past abuses during the “war on terror” — such as the Haditha massacre in Iraq — as stark examples of what happens when legal limits are completely disregarded. Yet war crimes remain meaningful only to the extent that there is a will to enforce accountability and to acknowledge that such violations exist in the first place. When “Meet the Press” recently asked Trump whether the president is obligated to uphold the Constitution, his response — “I don’t know” — laid bare his view of the law not as a binding force, but as something malleable for those who wield state power. Moreover, given the almost near certainty that any government officials could be or will be held accountable for war crimes, the possibility of being held accountable for other crimes is nonexistent.

In November, the Trump administration released its National Security Strategy. Beyond celebrating and applauding Trump’s leadership and providing a definition of “American strategy,” the document includes a section titled “What should the United States want.” The section starts with the following sentence: “First and foremost, we want the continued survival and safety of the United........

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