Donald has a long, well-documented history of undermining accountability for war crimes.

The fact that he and other members of his regime are currently implicated in committing war crimes should surprise no one,

since this is just the latest development in a long-standing pattern.

I want to take a look at Donald's history with interfering with the accountability for war crimes that has been going on for years now.

Between 2019 and 2020 during his first term, Donald pardoned individuals convicted or accused of serious war crimes, including but not limited to, Matthew Goldstein,

a former U.S. Army Special Forces Major who was accused of killing an unarmed Afghan man in 2010.

The Army charged him with premeditated murder after he admitted to the killing during a CIA job interview. Donald parted him in December

2019 before the case even had a chance to go to trial. And then there's the infamous Eddie Edward

Gallagher, a Navy SEAL chief petty officer who was accused of committing multiple war crimes in 2017, including

stabbing a teenage ISIS prisoner to death and shooting Iraqi civilians. Although acquitted

of most charges, Gallagher was convicted of posing with a corpse. Donald intervened in the

case repeatedly and ultimately restored Gallagher's rank.

Clint Lawrence, a first lieutenant in the army, was convicted of second-degree murder

for ordering his soldiers to fire on unarmed Afghan villagers in 2012, which resulted in the deaths of two men. Donald

pardon Lawrence in November 2019. In March and July of 2025, Donald issued clemency to other

U.S. government personnel implicated in unlawful killings during counterterrorism and counter-narcotics missions.

In July, Donald commuted the sentence of Navy Lieutenant Commander Brian Hale, who had been

convicted in 2024 for authorizing a strike on a suspected narcotics vessel in the Eastern Caribbean.

An operation later found to have killed three unarmed fishermen.

A Pentagon investigation concluded that Hale had violated rules of engagement and international

maritime law. Donald's commutation overwrote a unanimous Navy clemency and parole board recommendation,

prompting UN legal experts to warn the U.S. was, quote, normalizing impunity for unlawful killings, unquote.

...