Justice Dept. Memo Approved Military Incursion Into Venezuela as Lawful Attorney General Pam Bondi told lawmakers in briefings this week that the administration would share Office of Legal Counsel memo with them. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/06/u...

Justice Dept. Drops Claim That Venezuela’s ‘Cartel de los Soles’ Is an Actual Group Last year, before capturing Maduro, the Trump administration designated a Venezuelan slang term for drug corruption in the military as a terrorist organization and said he led it. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/05/u...

Legal Issues Raised by Trump’s Seizure of Maduro, Explained The operation revives disputes over the legality of the 1989 Panama intervention, enhanced by President Trump’s vow to “run” Venezuela and Nicolás Maduro’s formal status as president. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/03/u...

How Oil, Drugs and Immigration Fueled Trump’s Venezuela Campaign New details of deliberations show how aides with overlapping agendas drove the United States toward a militarized confrontation with Venezuela. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/27/u...

John Brennan, the former CIA director, is trying to keep the Trump DOJ from steering its "grand conspiracy" investigation into Trump's political foes to Judge Aileen Cannon, who dismissed Trump's classified documents case. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/22/u...

Trump Relies on Distortions to Support His Pressure Campaign on Venezuela www.nytimes.com/2025/12/18/u...

Trump Relies on Distortions to Support His Pressure Campaign on Venezuela www.nytimes.com/2025/12/18/u...

Asserting a Personal Role in Warner Bros. Battle, Trump Expands His Powers Again The move comes as the Supreme Court also appears poised to put antitrust enforcement by the Federal Trade Commission under his control. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/09/u...

U.S. Military’s Boat Strikes Planning Takes On New Significance The details could raise questions about who was responsible for a follow-up strike on Sept. 2 — the commander who ordered it or the defense secretary. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/03/u...

Hegseth Ordered a Lethal Attack but Not the Killing of Survivors, Officials Say www.nytimes.com/2025/12/01/u...

I definitely don't like everything Elon Musk has done to Twitter/X, and especially think algorithmic suppression of posts with links in them is a mistake. But this new thing of disclosing what country accounts are apparently based in is interesting.

Trump y compañía dicen que Maduro lidera un ‘cártel’. Esto es lo que significa Los venezolanos acuñaron un término para referirse a los generales corrompidos por el dinero del narcotráfico: “Cártel de los Soles”. Estados Unidos se lo tomó literalmente. www.nytimes.com/es/2025/11/1...

Trump Team Calls Maduro a ‘Cartel’ Boss. That Word Doesn’t Mean What You Think. Venezuelans coined a figure of speech for the phenomenon of generals corrupted by drug money: “Cartel de los Soles.” Then the US started talking about it as a literal organization. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/18/u...

Good piece by @rachelmorris.bsky.social about the liberal faculty lounge chin-stroking origins of what became a politically potent nativist argument about the 14th Amendment and birthright citizenship. (Aside: I am sorry to hear that Peter Schuck, whose torts class I took 23 years ago, is ailing.)

Memo Blessing Boat Strikes Is Said to Rely on Trump’s Claims About Cartels Accounts of a secret Justice Department memo offer a window into how administration lawyers approved the president’s desired course of action. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/13/u...

DOJ filing shows prosecution considers Comey telling Graham he didn't remember getting a memo w/ the 'Clinton plan' thing to be part of the case. Grand jury no-billed the attempted perjury charge but they think it's still evidence for obstruction charge. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Walter Isaacson and I discussed Dick Cheney's presidential power legacy and how he paved the way for Donald Trump despite being adversaries. This aired tonight on PBS's Amanpour & Co. www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuH6...

How Cheney’s Presidential Power Push Paved the Way for Trump to Go Further Donald J. Trump and Dick Cheney became adversaries, but the former vice president set the stage for Mr. Trump’s bid to expand his executive authority. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/04/u...

My first book, Takeover, was about Dick Cheney's quest to expand presidential power (or "restore" it, as he saw it, to the level it had reached when Nixon was president, before Watergate). First two chapters, including Cheney's rise, free here: charliesavage.com/books/takeov...

War Powers Law Does Not Apply to Trump’s Boat Strikes, Administration Says The stance deepened the idea that a Vietnam-era law, which says congressionally unauthorized deployments into “hostilities” must end after 60 days, does not apply to airstrike campaigns. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/01/u...

Why Trump’s Boat Killings Would Be Hard to Prosecute Even if critics who call President Trump’s boat attacks “murder” are right as a matter of law, it would not be easy to get the matter into a court. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/30/u...

After Law Firm Deals With Trump, D.C. Bar Warns of Ethical Jeopardy The bar group’s ethics committee says firms that make a deal with the government may need to get waivers from clients with opposing interests. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/28/u...

U.S. Military Kills Six People in Latest Boat Strike in the Caribbean The Trump administration has acknowledged 10 strikes on suspected drug-smuggling boats from South America, which have killed 43 people. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/24/u...

Gift link The Peril of a White House That Flaunts Its Indifference to the Law The White House has made no legal argument explaining its bald claim that the president has wartime power to summarily kill people suspected of smuggling drugs. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/24/u...

U.S. Strikes Boat in Pacific, Expanding Operation Against Drug Running Suspects It was the eighth known strike, and the first outside of the Caribbean, in the Trump administration’s campaign against what it says are boats carrying drugs bound for the United States. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/22/u...

U.S. Attacks More Boats as Tensions With Venezuela Rise: What’s Happened So Far The Trump administration is ratcheting up pressure on the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, while striking vessels that it says are trafficking drugs. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/21/u...

Ecuador Rejects Prosecution of Survivor of U.S. Strike on Vessel The country has freed the man, one of two survivors of a U.S. military strike on a submersible vessel last week, defying President Trump’s claim that he would be held and prosecuted. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/21/u...

U.S. Detains 2 Survivors of Latest Military Strike in Caribbean The capture of prisoners presents a major new set of legal and policy problems for the Trump administration in its escalating campaign. w/ Eric Schmitt, h/t @reuters.com www.nytimes.com/2025/10/17/u...

How the Bolton Indictment Compares to Trump’s Classified Documents Case Some charges against the onetime national security adviser resemble the dropped case against President Trump, but there are also differences. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/16/u...

U.S. Military Kills Another 6 People in 5th Caribbean Strike, Trump Says In a social media post, the president said the people aboard a boat were suspected of smuggling drugs for an unspecified group his team had labeled terrorists. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/14/u...

The Mortgage Fraud Case Against Letitia James, Explained An indictment brought by a novice prosecutor and Trump loyalists against one of the president’s foes centers on a 2020 house purchase. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/10/u...

Trump Baselessly Claims He ‘Took the Freedom of Speech Away’ From Flag Burners www.nytimes.com/2025/10/09/u...

Comey’s Two Legal Challenges to His Indictment, Explained A lawyer for the former F.B.I. director said he would accuse the Justice Department of malicious and selective prosecution and contend that a U.S. attorney was illegally appointed. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/08/u...

Trump, Drug Cartels, Venezuela and War: What We Know The Trump administration is ratcheting up pressure on Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s president, while attacking boats in the Caribbean Sea. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/06/u...

C.I.A. Deputy Director Has Replaced Agency’s Top Legal Official With Himself It is not clear what is behind the move by Michael Ellis, a Trump loyalist. A legal ethics specialist said it could raise conflict-of-interest issues. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/06/u...

I turned on Alexa+, Amazon's new AI enhanced voice assistant, yesterday. While eating dinner a few minutes ago, asked for an update on the Cubs-Padres game and it said this. In real life, the Cubs were up 2-0 in the bottom of the fifth. So Alexa+, like other AIs, hallucinates and is unreliable.

Trump ‘Determined’ the U.S. Is Now in a War With Drug Cartels, Congress Is Told A notice calls the people the U.S. military recently killed on suspicion of drug smuggling in the Caribbean Sea “unlawful combatants.” www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/u...

In case useful, I made a chart (with CourtListener links) of the newly disclosed attorney-client privilege material from the Trump J6 and docs grand jury investigations, and how they compares to the executive privilege-focused files that became public last October. charliesavage.com/2025/09/newl...

Top Trump Aides Push for Ousting Maduro From Power in Venezuela An opposition movement whose figures have met with U.S. officials says it is communicating with Washington on plans to dismantle Nicolás Maduro’s “criminal structure.” www.nytimes.com/2025/09/29/u...

Fight Over Hidden Report on Trump Documents Case Goes to Appeals Court Meanwhile, previously secret passages in court filings over grand jury fights in two cases against the president have been revealed. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/30/u...

The Testimony at the Heart of the Comey Indictment, Examined The charges against the former F.B.I. director center on an appearance he made before a Senate committee in September 2020. Here’s a closer look. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/26/u...

The Daily did an episode today w/ me on Trump's ordering the US military to summarily kill drug smuggling suspects in the Caribbean, including why this has raised legal alarms & what it may portend for Venezuela. w/ Natalie Kitroeff www.nytimes.com/2025/09/25/p...

I appreciate that Tom Brady is resisting the NFL sportscaster fad of clownishly garish men’s suits

I experienced this last week & refused, saying I had never before been asked to provide the names of any analysts I was planning to quote to get a comment. Spox replied that maybe they were D donors. (In that case, it was 3 retired top military JAG officers.) I guess that was not a weird oneoff.

A draft Authorization for Use of Military Force, circulating in exec branch & on the Hill, would grant Trump the power to kill people he deems narcoterrorists and to attack any nations he says are aiding/harboring them (e.g. a Venezuela regime change war). www.nytimes.com/2025/09/19/u...

Can Trump Actually Designate Antifa a Terrorist Group? Here Are the Facts. The president made the same declaration in 2020, but nothing came of it. His new declaration came amid broader threats against liberals after the Charlie Kirk killing. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/18/u...

Congratulations to my friend and colleague David Gelles on his new book “Dirtbag Billionaire: How Yvon Chouinard Built Patagonia, Made a Fortune and Gave It All Away”

Boat Suspected of Smuggling Drugs Is Said to Have Turned Before U.S. Attacked It The Trump administration has argued that the summary killing of 11 people it accused of running drugs was legal under the laws of war. w/ Helene Cooper www.nytimes.com/2025/09/10/u...

Congratulations to JJ McCarthy for throwing his first career touchdown to his hometown Chicago Bears! The stuff dreams are made of!

When Congress Should Be Notified About National Security Operations, Explained The Trump administration failed to tell lawmakers about a 2019 SEAL Team 6 incursion into North Korean territory that went awry. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/05/u...