The experts on committing statute crimes in the Trump Administration are putting their know-how to an innovative strategy for arguing that the war crime they’re planning against Iran starting 8:00 PM EDT on Tuesday (supposedly) isn’t really a war crime: Officials are trying to find power plants that supply some of their output to Iran’s military, thus justifying their inclusion on a list of targets, which Politico writes is “a workaround” against accusations “of war crimes for striking basic infrastructure.”

Former Army JAG Sean Timmons says this is a thing. “Before targets get approved, they have to go under operational legal review. Some civilian infrastructure, if dually used by the military, can under the laws of war be a legitimate target. The concern that people have, that this will get excessive, is legitimate… but there are checks and balances,” Timmons said, and immediately after the expert quote Politico notes that drunken date rapist Pete Hegseth had gutted the offices that conduct those reviews. Plus there was that whole thing where they bombed an elementary school and killed more than 150 little girls on Day One of the war so maybe “excessive” won’t quite be the right word.

Like are they even going to bother saying “Well there’s one IRGC-owned print shop that cranked out recruiting posters saying said ‘The Few. The Fanatic. The Revolutionary Guard Corps’ for their strip mall offices across Iran and it was down the street from that 1,200 MW plant that powered a city of half-million that had no other military infrastructure otherwise but nobody said there was ever any percentage rule here”? Seems like more effort then we’re used to from the crew.

Probably going to be closer to like theoretical, potential military use for the grid. Trump, Hegseth, and all their minions would prefer the flexibility for their half-assed post-hoc justifications.