Trump Prepares to Attack Eighth Country of His Second Term

Donald Trump can’t stop intervening in other countries.

Weeks after a preliminary peace deal with Iran fell apart, Donald Trump has turned his attention toward his next military conquest.

The Trump administration is reportedly considering taking military action against an  Al Qaeda-affiliated group in Mali known as JNIM, according to several current and former U.S. officials that spoke with The Washington Post Wednesday. 

Doing so would add to the president’s warmongering tally, marking the eighth nation he has ordered strikes on since he began his second term as president.

The other affected countries are Yemen, Somalia, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, and Venezuela. Trump has also ordered 66 strikes against small watercraft in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific in an admittedly futile attempt to interrupt drug smuggling into the U.S., killing at least 221 people in the process.

One of the administration’s top proponents for using brute force in Mali is Sebastian Gorka, the National Security Council’s senior director for counterterrorism. The London-born Hungarian has been a fixture in Trump’s inner circle since 2017, though his appointment to Trump’s first administration came as a surprise to many in his field. Gorka had previously been known for his extremist, Islamophobic views, which relegated him to the fringes of Washington and his position as an editor at Breitbart.  

But specialists in the region disagree with the violent approach.

Wassim Nasr, a senior research fellow at the Soufan Center, which focuses on the Sahel region, said that America’s influence would be better used in “conflict resolution” by forcing Mali’s stratocracy into talks with JNIM. Otherwise, the White House could be squaring up for another major loss.

“Opting for the military solution one more time won’t get things resolved,” Nasr told the Post. “The French tried that for 10 years. The Russians have been trying for five years. The situation has only gotten worse and worse.”

Justice Department Lawyers Reportedly Afraid to Put Things in Writing

DOJ lawyers appear to have made a stunning admission in a case against a Minneapolis journalist covering an anti-ICE protest.

Lawyers working at the Department of Justice are refusing to put certain information in writing out of fear that it could be used against them.

The DOJ is prosecuting two journalists over their coverage of an anti-ICE protest at Cities Church in Minnesota in January, and one of them, Georgia Ellyse Fort, is charged with three felonies, including a hate crime. Fort’s defense counsel is accusing the government of spying on her, and a judge barred the government from using toll records and cell phone simulators that include Fort’s phone activity.

A Homeland Security Investigations agent, Timothy Gerber, allegedly began using customs summonses to get information about Fort, whose lawyers said that the prosecutors would not say whether the government was continuing to use those summonses. The prosecution........

© New Republic