Remember Signalgate?
Every time the scandal pops up in my mind, I am stunned that Pete Hegseth emerged unscathed and with a job. That he remains in his post as defense secretary, now overseeing a campaign of boat strikes that has been likened to extrajudicial killings, is difficult to process.
But as I noted this weekend, Hegseth is finally getting investigated thanks to an explosive Washington Post report alleging that on September 2, he gave a spoken order to kill everybody aboard a vessel carrying suspected drug traffickers in the Caribbean. The occupants included two people who had survived the initial missile strike and were seen "clinging" to the wreckage.
As Sen. Mark Kelly told CNN, if true, that surely sounds like a war crime.
Time will tell if any material consequences come for Hegseth. But it certainly means something that the Republican-led committees in both the House and Senate are finally pissed off enough to look into it.
—Inae Oh
