NAPOLITANO: Killing Drug Survivors by US Secretary of War Could Be War Crime

Former New Jersey Superior Court Judge Andrew Napolitano told Newsmax Tuesday that U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth could be committing a war crime if he ordered the deaths of survivors from a boat carrying drugs.

While the White House has stated it believes such actions are within legal parameters to stop illegal drug flow into America, Napolitano expressed significant reservations based on his interpretation of military law.

“I wish the White House would reveal to us the laws on which the president is relying,” Napolitano said. “He says he has an opinion from the Justice Department, but neither the Justice Department nor the White House will offer it for public scrutiny.”

Napolitano described his accusation against Hegseth as difficult to make, but emphasized its basis in law:

“It gives me no pleasure to say what I’m about to say, because I worked with Pete Hegseth for seven or eight years at Fox News. This is an act of a war crime,” he declared.

His reasoning centers on the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the laws governing military actions against drug trafficking incidents at sea:

“There’s absolutely no legal basis for it,” Napolitano asserted, adding that individuals involved in authorizing or carrying out such killings should be subject to prosecution through a military court martial. “Everybody along the line who did it… should be prosecuted for a war crime.”

He further argued against the concept of self-defense justification offered by authorities:

“Two people in the ocean clinging to a boat to stay alive, and they’re going to be killed for self defense,” Napolitano questioned. “That doesn’t make any sense.” He concluded that even with lethal force authorized under international law, drug trafficking survivors must still be rescued.

Napolitano also took issue with terminology used by the administration:

“While the White House says they will kill narcoterrorists trafficking illegal drugs toward the United States,” he noted, “that constitutes a war crime since ‘narcoterrorist’ is not a legal term.”