Ten News Items from The Contrarian

 

These Top 10 lists will be refreshed weekly and will have their own tab on the Contrarian homepage. Here’s our first one, followed as usual by my rundown of all of this week’s indispensable coverage in The Contrarian:

1. New York Attorney General Letitia James

Trump has had a long-running grudge against AG James and went so far as to post on social media what seemed to have been intended as a direct message to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi demanding James be prosecuted. The resulting bogus charges that James committed mortgage fraud were thrown out by a judge who determined that Trump’s handpicked crony Lindsey Halligan was not authorized to file the indictment. Then, when the DOJ tried to bring the case again this week, a grand jury reportedly refused to charge.

Next: Trump should give up, but he probably won’t. Expect another stab at a grand jury in weeks ahead.

2. Judge Hannah Dugan

The Trump administration is prosecuting Wisconsin state Judge Hannah Dugan for simply doing what jurists do every day: controlling her court. They claim that by excusing a defendant–who was an undocumented migrant–from her courtroom, she was attempting to hide him from federal officials, and thus interfering with their case against him. It’s hard to imagine any prior administration bringing this case–or the jury finding her guilty.

Next: The trial begins Dec. 15.

3. Former FBI Director James Comey

Comey is also a long-time target of Trump’s revenge, dating all the way to the end of the 2016 campaign when Comey announced that Democratic presidential nominee and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s emails weren’t worthy of further criminal investigation. Laughable claims that Comey perjured himself before Congress were brought by the same unauthorized prosecutor as in the James case, and tossed by the same judge (see item 1 above). The statute of limitations has run, so this one is bound for the graveyard.

Next: Despite its moribund nature, expect Trump to try to bring the case back from the dead. That will likely fail.

4. U.S. Rep. LaMonica McIver

Trump went after McIver, a sitting member of Congress, for doing her constitutional duty: conducting congressional oversight. McIver tried to visit a detention center in her own district–and federal agents charged her with forcibly interfering with their work. The video shows her basically trying to de-escalate while agents ramped things up. It seems unlikely that a jury will fall for these preposterously overstated charges.

Next: The trial date is pending. Supplemental briefing on whether one of the three counts should be dismissed is due on Tuesday, December 9.

5. Union Leader David Huerta

Huerta, president of the Service Employees International Union California, was “part of a group that arrived…as federal officers arrested dozens of garment workers” on June 6 in Los Angeles. He was hit with a felony for allegedly interfering with the federal agents. Tellingly, prosecutors later downgraded it to a misdemeanor. Huerta pleaded not guilty, stating “These charges are baseless. They are an attempt to silence anyone who dares to speak out.” He has a point. (Note: my Democracy Defenders Fund colleagues and I are among the counsel team representing Huerta in this case).

Next: There will be a pretrial conference on January 6. The trial will begin on January 20th.

6. Former National Security Advisor John Bolton

Bolton, Trump’s former National Security Advisor, wrote a tell-all book about Trump’s deranged behavior during his first term–and has been charged with 18 counts of mishandling national defense information. Bolton’s book was cleared by former National Security Council career staff, but we don’t know as much about what’s going on under the hood here because much information relating to the case remains classified. We do know that Trump has spent years publicly seething about Bolton. This prosecution screams “selective and vindictive,” and Bolton’s lawyers will likely argue exactly that.

Next: Pre-trial proceedings are underway. In last week’s status conference, the Government indicated it might add new charges The Court also granted a joint request to toll the speedy trial clock until October 5, 2026.

7. U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff.

Schiff, a longtime Trump foe and impeachment manager, reportedly faces investigation for mortgage fraud—the same type of baseless claim Trump tried to use against James. Reports indicate prosecutors are hesitant to bring charges–presumably because the evidence just doesn’t measure up (also like with James). But, as this top 10 list demonstrates, bogus charges based on flimsy evidence have not stopped this regime from pursuing its perceived political enemies.

Next: With prosecutors dragging their feet, this one might not go the distance.

8. U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell

Swalwell is yet another Trump foe facing a dubious mortgage investigation. This one comes at the hands of Bill Pulte, Trump’s director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, who, in a very Trumpean move, allegedly used his position to illegally obtain Swalwell’s records–and decided to play prosecutor, referring the congressman to DOJ. Swalwell fought back with a lawsuit claiming Pulte violated his privacy rights. This attempt to use government access to settle political scores might end up backfiring, as it’s alleged Pulte overstepped substantially.

Next: Swalwell’s lawsuit against Pulte moves forward; the investigation into Swalwell? Not so much.

9. Former CIA Director John Brennan and Others

Brennan is another of Trump’s old first-term nemeses who’s facing criminal investigation for his role in the Russia investigation–which, to be clear, found that Russia did indeed tamper in the 2016 election on Trump’s behalf. Trump sycophant and suit jacket hater Rep. Jim Jordan referred Brennan to the DOJ for allegedly lying to Congress about the role the CIA played in that investigation, and, in November, a grand jury reportedly subpoenaed Brennan and others for records. There’s no there here.

Next: The investigation continues with grand jury activity in Florida.

10. Kilmar Abrego Garcia

Garcia was illegally deported to El Salvador’s most notorious prison after Immigration and Customs Enforcement violated a judge’s protective order. The Trump cabal later admitted it was an “administrative error“ (oops!), and a judge ordered him returned. Garcia reunited with his family in August, only for ICE to snatch him up again–after he was indicted by the administration for human smuggling. The courts have been sharply critical of the case, including stating that there is a “realistic likelihood” the prosecution is vindictive and allowing discovery on point. Garcia remains in custody while pleading not guilty.

Next: In the criminal case, the final pretrial conference is January 20, 2026 and the trial is scheduled to begin on January 27…

-The Contrarian

 

Glory to Ukraine! (Слава Україні!) by Glen Brown (Глен Браун)

 

It is indisputable that Putin’s systematic and vicious annihilation of the Ukrainian people and their cultural heritage and independence is none other than what it is: a crime against humanity. What is the ultimate good which is supposed to compensate for this evil? Putin had no justifiable emergency and reasons to attack Ukraine in order to secure Russia’s survival, no just or legal cause, no right or moral intention, and no promise of a successful victory.

All attempts by western media to understand and explain Putin’s resentment and xenophobia toward the West, his intentions and rationalizations for war, such as his all-consuming ambition to restore the Soviet Union, his claim that Ukraine is not a sovereign country and belongs to Russia, his desire to eradicate the Ukrainian language and culture, his desire to annex and aid the Separatists in their autonomy in the Donbas region, and his belief that the minority-aligned fascist militias in southeastern Ukraine and NATO’s eastern expansion are serious threats to Russia’s sovereignty... can never justify Russia's indiscriminate raping, torturing, killing and imprisoning innocent Ukrainian people and the kidnapping of Ukrainian children.  

-Glen Brown

"Judge Florence Pan starts her dissent by explaining why it’s important for some parts of government to retain independence from the White House"

This morning, a panel of the D.C. Circuit that split 2-1 ruled that presidents can remove members of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) or Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) despite the existence of laws that are intended to shield them from removal without cause. That’s precisely what Donald Trump did. 

This opinion, with Judges Neomi Rao and Gregory Katsas, both Trump appointees, in the majority, blesses it. This case is too important to get lost in the crush of other news, so I’m writing a rare midday post about it, to make sure we focus on this decision. 

The case is styled as Harris v.o Bessent, although there are numerous parties involved and the order directly impacts the president’s ability to fire at will. The only good thing to say about this opinion is that it starts off with a clear statement about the court’s decision: “These appeals present the question whether Congress may constitutionally prohibit the President from removing members of the National Labor Relations Board and Merit Systems Protection Board without cause. The district courts upheld the constitutionality of statutory removal protections for members of these boards. We reverse.”

Next comes the deeply unsatisfying explanation: “Under Humphrey’s Executor v. United States … Congress may restrict the President’s ability to remove principal officers who wield only quasi legislative or quasi-judicial powers. But under Seila Law LLC v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau…Congress may not restrict the President’s ability to remove principal officers who wield substantial executive power.” 

Humphrey’s Executor is a case we’ve heard a lot about recently because the Supreme Court is considering a case that may lead to reversal or constriction of the longstanding precedent that protected certain appointees from this sort of dismissal. We discussed that case and its significance here if you want a refresher. 

The pending case is Trump v. Slaughter, which the Supreme Court will hear argument in on Monday. We’ll discuss it in Sunday’s “The Week Ahead” post. Suffice it to say, this opinion may be a preview of how the Court decides Slaughter, which makes it well worth our attention.

So how does the majority on this 2-1 panel justify giving Donald Trump the power to remove at will people he disagrees with or thinks are insufficiently loyal to him personally? They do it like this: “As explained below, the NLRB and MSPB wield substantial powers that are both executive in nature and different from the powers that Humphrey’s Executor deemed to be merely quasi-legislative or quasi-judicial. So, Congress cannot restrict the President’s ability to remove NLRB or MSPB members.”

Judge Florence Pan starts her dissent by explaining why it’s important for some parts of government to retain independence from the White House: “The public is well served when some parts of our government are insulated from the fray of politics. That is because certain government functions are, or should be, nonpartisan.” She offers examples that put some flesh on the bare bones: “courts of law and other adjudicators that apply legal standards to facts must be impartial, and their impartiality is protected when the decision-makers do not fear losing their jobs when there is a change in presidential administrations.”

“Some agencies that employ subject matter expertise to address technical regulatory and policy issues, such as the Federal Reserve, are better able to execute their duties and to inspire public confidence in their decision making if they are distanced from political considerations.”

She points to the long history and tradition of these agencies’ existence, at least 138 years, with the Supreme Court signing off on their constitutionality 100 years ago.

The majority tried, without any explanation, to carve out the FED, whose independence is widely regarded as essential to business and financial markets. Judge Pan points out that the rationale they use, becoming the first court in the country to “strike down the independence of a traditional multimember expert agency” applies just as readily to all other entities, including the FED. If the decision stands, it is a sea change in how our government functions. This is the unitary executive theory on steroids, as the Judge explains:

The government asked the court to adopt what Judge Pan calls “an unprecedented interpretation of the Constitution.” She writes that it “would lead to the full politicization of our government and a massive transfer of power to the President.” While the majority doesn’t expressly adopt it, she points out that the approach they take differs in name only. 

Instead of expressly reversing Humphrey’s Executor (which SCOTUS may still do), they “redefine” its doctrinal hook, whether an agency exercises “substantial executive power” in a way that would not allow for any independent agencies. Judge Pan points out this means that they get to maintain “the appearance of judicial restraint” while permitting the executive branch to continue its takeover of power. Her conclusion in this regard is chilling.

“It paves the way to autocracy” is strong language. Judge Pan, a Biden appointee to the Court of Appeals, was in the 3-0 majority of the D.C. Circuit that ruled against Donald Trump in U.S. v. Trump, the presidential immunity case, and has written against executive branch encroachment on government powers in other cases. She undoubtedly doesn’t use language like that lightly. She concludes her dissent by writing, “Unlike my colleagues, I would decline the government’s invitation to radically reshape our government.”

This case heads next to the Supreme Court, although perhaps if the Court reverses Humphrey’s Executor outright before it gets there, it will become moot. Either way, Judge Pan’s cautionary guidance about the impact of ending quasi-independent agencies’ existence while pretending you aren’t doing just that is dangerous for democracy. 

Agency law practice isn’t particularly sexy, but it is still important and a fix for this predicament can come if Congress passes a law explicitly providing for standards that make it clear that within lawful constitutional constraints, government must work for the people, which means preventing a maximalist view of executive power from taking root. So onward to the midterm elections, whose importance is beginning to overshadow everything else.

We’re in this together,

-Joyce Vance

 

Making English Our Official Language

 

The Trump administration’s nativist rhetoric and policy has sparked consistent, widespread critique and protest. And yet, there’s one unprecedented anti-immigrant policy move that has garnered relatively little attention.

In March, the President signed an executive order declaring English the official language of the United States. This historic order marked the first time in US history that the federal government has declared an official language. 

As a sociolinguist who studies the connection between language and repressive politics, I worry that we ignore a move toward linguistic “unity” at our peril. The executive order does not require federal agencies to stop offering services, websites, or materials in multiple languages, yet this is exactly what many federal agencies are doing. 

In July, the Justice Department was instructed to minimize “non-essential multilingual services” across federal agencies. In August, the department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) pulled down translated materials from their website, announcing that moving forward the department would speak “with one voice and one language.”  Contracts for translation services have been reportedly canceled. The Department of Education rescinded key bilingual education guidance. 

While the 1974 Supreme Court ruling that requires public schools to help students learn English and understand academic content is still in force, it’s up to the Department of Justice and Department of Education to enforce it—and combined with the elimination of offices and personnel that monitored compliance, the Presidential directive creates a ready environment for discrimination and exclusion.

In a historically multilingual nation, a government that insists on an English-only approach is less responsive, representative, and accountable to constituents. Over 27 million people in the U.S. have limited proficiency in English and may be affected by decreased access to language access services, with disproportionate impacts on immigrants. For people seeking health, education, or law enforcement services, the consequences can be dire. When these building blocks of family and community wellbeing are inaccessible, families become isolated, vulnerable, and less able to thrive.

When it comes to political participation, an English-only federal government transforms language from a means of communication into a systemic barrier. Linguistic disenfranchisement prevents individuals from seeking justice, challenging unfair regulations, or holding officials accountable. A person who cannot communicate with court officials, tax officials, or managers of workplace conditions is a person whose human and civil rights are at risk.

Not only does the executive order place a heavy linguistic burden on US residents seeking information or accountability from their government, it also has immense symbolic weight. The order’s stated aim to “cultivate a shared American culture for all citizens” elevates a false ideal of homogeneity. It’s not hard to imagine that the use of “citizen” here is meant to exclude non-citizen residents from the national culture, especially since this line of argument echoes nativist, nationalist rhetoric of repressive regimes past and present.

One of Francisco Franco’s early acts in his decades-long nationalist rule of Spain was to persecute the public use of regional languages such as Catalan, Galician and Basque. Basque students caught speaking their heritage language were forced to write lines stating, “I must not speak Basque at school.” In apartheid South Africa, the white-minority government used language policy to maintain control, designating English and Afrikaans as the only two official languages. Here in the US, Native American children forcibly sent to boarding schools were punished for speaking their heritage language.

So, what can we do to push back against the stifling rhetoric and laws that seek to enforce English-only environments?

We can first reject scapegoating aimed at American residents whose primary language is not English. In authoritarian movements, scapegoating is a central tactic used to consolidate power, unify followers, and deflect blame for societal problems away from leaders and systemic issues. It relies on identifying a supposedly deviant “other” as the cause of the public’s frustrations and fears. We can redirect that blame where it belongs.

We can also remind ourselves that public opinion isn’t fixed, which means that the way we talk about these issues matters. Most Americans hold misconceptions about multilingualism, its history, and its implications for a society—but with the right approach, these very same people can be persuaded to value and support its flourishing. Based on research my colleagues and I conducted at the FrameWorks Institute, these three framing strategies are especially effective in building support for expansive, inclusive language policies:

Change the Metaphor: People often think of the nation as if it’s a container with a fixed volume for language—and reason that adding other languages could displace English. This assumption is wrong: both minds and societies have great multilingual capacities. A simple way to prompt more expansive thinking is to explain that language works more like an abundant garden, where plant variety strengthens and enriches the entire ecosystem.

Focus on the Gains, Not the Deficit: When advocating for multilingualism, emphasize the significant cognitive advantages it confers. Explain that for young children, learning more than one language early in life strengthens their executive function skills, metacognition, and ability to understand other perspectives.

Highlight the Human Cost of Loss: Talk openly about the real costs faced by children and adolescents who lose a heritage language. Unless children use a language regularly, they can lose fluency, which can mean losing connection to family, culture, history, and often, identity. Explain that language policies can either help or hinder language maintenance, and that we can create systems that work with, rather than discourage, the multilingualism that has always been part of our nation’s social fabric.

Finally, we can all pay attention to whether and how the heritage language speakers in our communities are scapegoated or supported. We can vocally reject anti-immigrant sentiment. And we can insist that our local and state governments commit to linguistically inclusive services.

Making English our official language does not make us stronger as a nation; it makes us smaller, colder, and less humane. To abandon our commitment to a multilingual government is to abandon both freedom of expression and the expectation that our government is “of the people, by the people, for the people.” A true commitment to “one voice” means ensuring every voice has the opportunity to be heard, understood, and supported.

---

Julie Sweetland, PhD, is a sociolinguist and a senior advisor at the FrameWorks Institute.

-The Contrarian

"A new sense of urgency is needed. Our national crisis has grown much more acute"

 

We have descended into utter madness. We knew we were at risk of it. We struggled against it as it was happening. We called out the warning signs and its first manifestations. And yet, somehow, its onset has accelerated and deepened and we are suddenly in a place of lunacy more acute than this country has ever experienced.

Bottom of Form

What is more, for all of our awareness and resistance, it is clear right now that our response is too subdued, too complacent, too accepting of the inarguably unacceptable. At least, as it turns out, frogs do have the common sense to jump out of a pot of water as its temperature grows unacceptably high. We don’t. The water is boiling all around us.

Take the news of just the past few days as sketched out in headlines and shards of social media. We are about to go to war against another country for no reason. Our president is delusionally barking out orders to the planet, seemingly convinced he rules the entire globe.

He commands closed the skies of a foreign land. He demands the people of another nation vote for his political ally or he will punish them. He sets free a convicted drug lord while arguing that he is waging a hemispheric battle against narco-terrorists. His minions are committing war crimes in his name, lying about their justifications, bringing disgrace on our country and our armed services.

In the wake of a tragic killing, he and his aides are making racist proclamations and promising sweeping draconian measures including banning entry to the US of all people from the “third world” and expelling from this country naturalized citizens who do not ascribe to our leaders’ ideas or political opinions.

He has turned the legal apparatus of this country against his perceived opponents, even those who are only doing their duty and urging others to do theirs, even those who recognize that illegal orders are being given that are resulting in crimes for which all those involved except the president himself can be prosecuted.

His emissaries are selling out our allies and seeking to pressure them into capitulation to foreign enemies in ways that will undermine our national security and that of many of our most important friends and partners.

Starkly unqualified crackpots have been put in charge of our healthcare system and are actively seeking to undo two centuries of progress in the administration of public health. Children are already dying because they are stigmatizing vaccines, attacking science itself for ideological reasons and with utter disregard for the risks that are being created. They are responding to a climate crisis by systematically stopping programs that might contain it and accelerating those that will certainly make it worse.

Corruption is rampant, in the open, almost celebrated. The White House has been partially torn down and is being replaced by a monstrous monument to the president’s ego…one unlike any ever conceived by any past leader in our history…one that increasingly grows so out of scale with both our executive mansion and the limits of good taste that the architect and contractors are seeking to distance themselves from the project.

Heroes are called traitors. Journalists and others who seek to exercise their first amendment rights are crudely bullied or worse. Racists are being given free rein make their twisted vision of what America should be into a reality enforced by the law. Armed thugs are on the march in our cities rounding up the innocent.

Vital programs upon which millions depend are being shut down. Universities are being directed away from learning, intellectual independence, the traits that made them the envy of the world and forced to bend the knee to an ideology that promotes ignorance and prejudice. With a few quick keystrokes, the mentally unstable man who is leading this country believes he can reverse every executive order of his predecessor and threaten him with prosecution.

This is just a summary of the past few days. This is just a progress report on our descent into a state that, unchecked, will surely destroy our country and that, even if reversed, will take decades to undo and repair.

It is not an exaggeration to observe that on virtually every issue of importance—national security, foreign policy, economics, budgets, taxation, tariffs, healthcare, social services, energy, environment, education or the rule of law that the policies and positions adopted by this administration are not just greatly deviant from our past or the views of the opposition or the views of the majority of Americans or our historical positions…they are completely wrong, the opposite of what is needed.

In almost every case, where the president and the administration can make a choice, they make the most damaging choice, the most dangerous choice. Think about it. Do your own math. Run through your own checklist. Perhaps you will find a few isolated areas in which they are not doing the worst possible thing. On one or two or a handful perhaps, they may be making a positive contribution to our well-being. But that is a handful out of countless instances in which the worst case is the case with which now find ourselves contending.

And it is less than a year into this administration. And the president is clearly, visibly, ever more rapidly declining, losing his faculties, losing any sense of perspective or limitations he might once have had, shouting into the void his commands, serving his needs, and seeking to institutionalize his pathologies in our national institutions and life.

As shocking as this is, however, our president’s dementia and character flaws and the defects of those in his inner circle are not our biggest problem. We are the problem. I don’t mean you, per se, no doubt you share my views on the above. No doubt you have been railing against what we see and are profoundly disturbed by where we are.

I mean the American people. I mean the third of the electorate who apparently still support what is happening. I mean the GOP legislators who enable him and their constituents who continue to back and empower them. I mean the traditional media that continues to both-sides a profound national crisis. I mean new media that feels snark and “I told you so” and calling for outcomes that will never occur are adequate. I mean those we know who just seek to change the subject or have grown inured to all this or think it is business as usual and that it will be reversed by time without any effort from them or who assume that shaking their head and lamenting our state is somehow enough.

We have reached a point at which recent events should be demanding that every group mentioned above, that all who have enabled or tolerated or not done enough to prevent where we are now must reconsider. This moment must be a turning point. It is time to recognize that we have entered a dark, perilous new phase of the drama of the Trump years and it is up to us all that we ensure we are in the last act of that play.

To do so, we must start by recognizing that what we are seeing happening, what has dominated the headlines every day this week, and the spiraling descent into national psychosis that we are experiencing is qualitatively different and much graver even than that we have experienced before. And we must acknowledge that there are still three years to go in this presidency, and we must imagine what they will look like if current trends go unchecked.

The water is boiling. It is time to get out. It is time to call it a crisis. It is time to sound the alarms. It is time to reject those who would excuse it. It is time to become intolerant of the intolerable, the equivocations, the excuses, the too timid responses. It is time to spend every erg of energy at our disposal to hasten the exits of the enablers and the principal actors at the center of all this.

Electing Trump was a mistake. Trump’s first term was for the most part a series of calamities. He should have been impeached and removed both times it was before the Congress. That he led an insurrection compounded and exceeded past bad choices and actions of he and his team. But where we are now is qualitatively worse and growing more precarious daily.

Thanks to the Supreme Court and the supine Congress and the right-wing media bubble and the apathy of most Americans and the bumbling of the opposition, Trump and those around him have been sent a message that they are above the law and that they have more power than anyone who has ruled here since George III. They believe they are unstoppable. He really does believe he can issue decrees on Truth Social and the laws and the world must submit to his will as soon as he has completed saying, “Thank you for your attention to this matter.”

It is for that reason we must see those words as a call to action. We do need to direct our attention to these matters. My sense is, as I have often written before, that while all of us have a role to play here, it is going to require a new generation of leaders and voters to step up. They will determine the tenor of the debates to come.

They will determine—by whether they turn out or not—the outcomes of the elections in 2026 and 2028. They will determine what alternative course of action can be followed that can stop this era of self-destruction and find new goals and remedies and a new path forward.

The problem is that for most of Millennials and Zoomers, Trump has been a fact of political life for virtually all their time as adults. He is the norm. And so they must either come to recognize that is an illusion or they must reject that norm and demand a new one.

In any case, noting the special role emerging generations must come to play while important to note, does not leave the rest of us off the hook. We all must come to terms with the idea that what we have done thus far is not enough. It is not working.

Our situation is only growing more dire. Past demonstrations have not been big enough. Past calls to action have not been urgent enough. Each of us has to ask, what more can we do—even if we feel we have done a great deal—and then we must do it. Because, as I noted at the outset, as I hope all of you have recognized over these past few days, we have descended into utter madness.

-David Rothkopf is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

 

Charles Brown and Franz Stigler

 

Twenty thousand feet above Germany, Charles Brown was dying. His B-17 bomber looked like it had been chewed through a meat grinder—bullet holes riddled the fuselage, half his crew lay dead or bleeding out, and the tail gunner slumped lifeless, blood frozen to the metal. Charles could barely see through his cracked goggles, his hands trembling on the controls. One more hit and they would all be gone.

That was when he saw the German fighter. Franz Stigler pulled his plane close, close enough to see the terror in the American pilot’s eyes. It should have been simple—one burst of gunfire, another kill added to his record. But as Franz looked into that shattered cockpit, something stopped him cold. Inside were boys. Just boys. Bleeding, terrified, clinging desperately to life. The tail gunner wasn’t moving. The other gunners had given up firing. They were defenseless.

Franz knew mercy could get him killed in Nazi Germany. His commanders would court-martial him for what he was about to do. But he didn’t care. Instead of firing, he flew beside the crippled bomber. He waved at Charles—not to mock him, but to guide him. Charles thought it had to be a trick. German pilots didn’t help Americans. They killed them. Yet Franz stayed there, mile after mile, keeping other fighters away, leading them toward the North Sea and safety.

When they reached the coast, Franz did something Charles would never forget. He saluted—one warrior honoring another—and then turned back into Germany. Charles and his crew made it home, alive because an enemy had chosen compassion over duty.

For forty years, Charles couldn’t stop thinking about it. Who was that German pilot? Why had he spared them? He wrote letters, contacted veteran groups, asked everyone he met. No one knew of a German fighter who had escorted a broken American bomber to safety. Most assumed he had imagined it. But Charles kept searching.

In 1990, he finally found an address. Franz Stigler, living quietly in Canada. With shaking hands, Charles picked up the phone. “I think you saved my life,” he said. Franz went silent, then whispered: “You were the B-17 with the dying tail gunner.” He had never forgotten either.

Weeks later, they met in person. Two old warriors, now grandfathers, embracing like long-lost brothers. Franz had never told anyone what he had done that day. In Nazi Germany, mercy could mean execution. “My commander once told me,” Franz explained, “if I ever see you shoot at a man in a parachute or a helpless crew, I will shoot you myself.” When he saw that broken bomber full of bleeding boys, he couldn’t pull the trigger.

The two men became best friends. They traveled together, spoke at schools, and showed the world that even in war’s darkest moments, humanity could triumph over hatred. Charles introduced Franz as “the man who saved my life.” Franz would reply, “He was just a boy. They were all just boys.”

Charles died in 2008. Franz followed eight months later, as if he couldn’t bear to be separated from the friend he had saved. Their story breaks the heart and heals it at the same time.

Franz didn’t have to show mercy. He was surrounded by voices telling him Americans were the enemy. He had every excuse to pull the trigger. But he looked past the uniform and saw the human underneath—boys trying to get home to their families, just like he was.

White House Claims Trump ‘Has the Authority to Kill’ Survivors of Boat Strikes

 

‘Furious Backlash’ Inside Pentagon as Hegseth Seeks to Avoid Blame for Deadly War Crimes

White House Claims Trump ‘Has the Authority to Kill’ Survivors of Boat Strikes

As the White House claims that President Donald Trump “has the authority” to blow up anyone he dubs a “narco-terrorist” and Adm. Frank M. “Mitch” Bradley prepares for a classified congressional briefing amid outrage over a double-tap strike that kicked off the administration’s boat bombing spree, rights advocates and legal experts emphasize that all of the US attacks on alleged drug-running vessels have been illegal.

“Trump said he will look into reports that the US military (illegally) conducted a follow-up strike on a boat in the Caribbean that it believed to be ferrying drugs, killing survivors of an initial missile attack. But the initial attack was illegal too,” Kenneth Roth, the former longtime director of the advocacy group Human Rights Watch, said on social media Monday.

Roth and various others have called out the US military’s bombings of boats in the Caribbean and Pacific as unlawful since they began on September 2, when the two strikes killed 11 people. The Trump administration has confirmed its attacks on 22 vessels with a death toll of at least 83 people.

Shortly after the first bombing, the Intercept reported that some passengers initially survived but were killed in a follow-up attack. Then, the Washington Post and CNN reported Friday that Bradley ordered the second strike to comply with an alleged spoken directive from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to kill everyone on board.

The administration has not denied that the second strike killed survivors, but Hegseth and the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, have insisted that the Pentagon chief never gave the spoken order. 

However, the reporting has sparked reminders that all of the bombings are “war crimes, murder, or both,” as the Former Judge Advocates General (JAGs) Working Group put it on Saturday.

Following Leavitt’s remarks about the September 2 strikes during a Monday press briefing, Roth stressed Tuesday that “it is not ‘self-defense’ to return and kill two survivors of a first attack on a supposed drug boat as they clung to the wreckage. It is murder. No amount of Trump spin will change that.”

“Whether Hegseth ordered survivors killed after a US attack on a supposed drug boat is not the heart of the matter,” Roth said. “It is blatantly illegal to order criminal suspects to be murdered rather than detained. There is no ‘armed conflict’ despite Trump’s claim.”

The Trump administration has argued to Congress that the strikes on boats supposedly smuggling narcotics are justified because the United States is in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels that the president has labeled terrorist organizations.

During a Sunday appearance on ABC News’ “This Week,” US Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said that “I think it’s very possible there was a war crime committed. Of course, for it to be a war crime, you have to accept the Trump administration’s whole construct here... which is we’re in armed conflict, at war... with the drug gangs.”

“Of course, they’ve never presented the public with the information they’ve got here,” added Van Hollen, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “But it could be worse than that. If that theory is wrong, then it’s plain murder.”

Michael Schmitt, a former Air Force lawyer and professor emeritus at the US Naval War College, rejects the Trump administration’s argument that it is at war with cartels. Under international human rights law, he told the Associated Press on Monday, “you can only use lethal force in circumstances where there is an imminent threat,” and with the first attack, “that wasn’t the case.”

“I can’t imagine anyone, no matter what the circumstance, believing it is appropriate to kill people who are clinging to a boat in the water... That is clearly unlawful,” Schmitt said. Even if the US were in an actual armed conflict, he explained, “it has been clear for well over a century that you may not declare what’s called ‘no quarter’—take no survivors, kill everyone.”

According to the AP: Brian Finucane, a senior adviser with the International Crisis Group and a former State Department lawyer, agreed that the US is not in an armed conflict with drug cartels. “The term for a premeditated killing outside of armed conflict is murder,” Finucane said, adding that US military personnel could be prosecuted in American courts.

“Murder on the high seas is a crime,” he said. “Conspiracy to commit murder outside of the United States is a crime. And under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, Article 118 makes murder an offense.”

Finucane also participated in a related podcast discussion released in October by Just Security, which on Monday published an analysis by three experts who examined “the law that applies to the alleged facts of the operation and Hegseth’s reported order.”

Michael Schmitt, Ryan Goodman, and Tess Bridgeman emphasized in Just Security that the law of armed conflict (LOAC) did not apply to the September 2 strikes because “the United States is not in an armed conflict with any drug trafficking cartel or criminal gang anywhere in the Western Hemisphere... For the same reason, the individuals involved have not committed war crimes.”

“However, the duty to refuse clearly unlawful orders—such as an order to commit a crime—is not limited to armed conflict situations to which LOAC applies,” they noted. “The alleged Hegseth order and special forces’ lethal operation amounted to unlawful ‘extrajudicial killing’ under human rights law... The federal murder statute would also apply, whether or not there is an armed conflict.”

Goodman added on social media Monday that the 11 people killed on September 2 “would be civilians even if this were an armed conflict... It’s not even an armed conflict. It’s extrajudicial killing.”

-Jessica Corbett, Common Dreams