I feel like this is one of those “a broken clock is right twice a day” scenarios.

“Department of War” is a far more accurate description of what they do. Calling it the “Department of Defense” is just propaganda/political spin.

That being said, Trump’s motivation for this is idiotic and the way he’s going about it is dumb as hell, but that actually is a better name.

That’s true but the same issue applies to both the article (which doesn’t use the term “statutory rape”), and the editor (who likely doesn’t have any legal expertise).

They’re not lawyers, though… they’re reporters.

They’re just reporting what the prosecutors accused the person of and if the prosecutor didn’t use the term “statutory rape” then the reporters probably shouldn’t either.

They don’t want to get the reporting wrong if they aren’t experts on the subject and even more so the don’t want to expose themselves to lawsuits if they do get the reporting wrong.

I really don’t think the reporters are trying to minimize the heinousness of the crime (at least not in this case). It looks more like they are just being conservative in what they state.

I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what happened here.

The odds of finding the real culprit after they’ve already eluded capture for 5+ days are extremely low.

Additionally, the evidence they supposedly found on him is extremely suspicious:

1. An untraceable gun that he allegedly kept on him the entire time even though the shooter discarded everything else.
2. A confession note that starts by talking about how much he respects the cops.

That doesn’t just sound like the sort of thing that would be planted on him… that sounds like the sort of thing that would be planted on him by an idiot.

Unless they have actual body cam footage of them catching him and finding the evidence, I have to assume he was framed.

Trump is full of shit.

There’s no other place for the Palestinians to go.

Egypt and Jordan aren’t going to take Palestinians from Gaza, so all of his talk is just bluster meant to appeal to Israeli right wingers.