DOUBLE TAP: After first denying that the survivors of an attack on a suspected drug boat were killed in a second strike, The White House and Pentagon now say it happened and was legal, putt responsibility on a Navy special forces admiral.

  The White House said yesterday that defense Sexretary Pete Hegseth ordered the strike in September, but not the killing of survivors.

  The destruction of the suspected drug boats in international waters is legally questionable but President Trump has declared the drug runners to be terrorists to justify the hits. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Admiral Frank Bradley had “worked well within his authority and the law directing the engagement to ensure the boat was destroyed and the threat to the United States of America was eliminated.”

  The NY Times reports that Bradley ordered the initial missile strike and then several follow-up strikes that killed survivors and sank the boat. 

KILLERS AND LEECHES: The M.O. of the Trump administration is that they deny it, don’t know anything about it, or blame someone else.

  White House Press secretary Karoline Leavitt yesterday delivered a diatribe blaming President Biden and his administration for the Washington shooting that took the life of a member of the National Guard and left another in critical condition. The accused gunman, an Afghan national, was brought into the US under the aegis of the Biden administration.

  “We continue to live with the deadly consequences of Joe Biden’s horrific leadership,” Leavitt said. “Nearly 100,000 Afghans were recklessly released into the United States with little or no vetting.” 

  The accused shooter, Rahmanullah worked with the CIA in Afghanistan for more than 10 years before the US military withdrew. He applied for asylum in the US under the Biden administration and was granted it under the Trump administration. He is reported to have had trouble adjusting to life in this country and was having mental distress.

  Leavitt went on to say that because of the Washington shooting, “The Trump administration is now re-examining all of the Afghans imported into the country by Joe Biden.” 

  They are doing more than that. They are barring all Afghans from entering the country. The administration has already paused all asylum decisions while reassessing the asylum approvals issued during the Biden administration. They  are reviewing the green cards that allow people from 19 countries, mostly from the Middle East or Africa, to live and work in the US.

  Kristi Noem, the secretary of homeland security, said in a social media statement yesterday that she recommended that President Trump enact “a full travel ban on every damn country that’s been flooding our nation with killers, leeches, and entitlement junkies.”

  She didn’t say what countries.

BY APPOINTMENT ONLY: A federal appeals court ruled yesterday that President Trump’s former personal lawyer Alina Habba has been serving unlawfully as the US attorney in New Jersey, dealing a second blow to the Trump administration on this issue and likely setting up a Supreme Court showdown.

  This is the second US Attorney appointment voided by a court. Lindsey Halligan in Virginia, who brought the indictment against former FBI Director James Comey, was ruled to have been named outside the 120-day limit for temporary appointments.

  Habba has served more than 120 days. The law says that beyond that limit a US Attorney must be confirmed by the Senate or named by a federal court.

  Neither Habba nor Halligan had any criminal prosecution experience before being named US Attorneys. Halligan so badly fumbled the cases for Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James that the charges were dismissed. 

THE REGIME: 

— Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s vaccine advisory panel is prepared to alter their advice on shots given to newborns and other changes to childhood vaccines. Kennedy has loaded his panel with vaccine skeptics. 

— The White House released a statement yesterday that “advanced imaging tests” on President Trump’s cardiovascular system and abdominal region showed he “remains in excellent overall health.” The statement did not reveal the reason for conducting the tests.

THE SPIN RACK: The Starbucks coffee chain agreed to pay $39 million to settle with New York City over complaints that the company had violated the law regarding fair working conditions. More than 15,000 hourly workers will share the payout. The city’s Department of Consumer and Worker Protection found that since 2021 Starbucks violated the law more than half a million times by failing to give workers predictable working hours. — Lawyers for Luigi Mangione, the 27-year-old accused of assassinating United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York, argued in court for the exclusion of evidence from Mangione’s backpack because the police did not have a search warrant to look inside it. 

BELOW THE FOLD:  Three Austrian nuns in their 80s fighting eviction from their cloister were offered a deal to stay … with conditions. The nuns had been moved to a care home against their will, broke back into their old convent, and are living there as squatters while waging a public campaign on their own behalf.

  The nuns were told they could stay if  they stop talking to the press and give up their Instagram accounts. They have 185,000 followers.

  The nuns said thank you, we’re staying, and remaining on social media. They also carry rulers in their hands.

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