Is Trump Afraid of the ICC? Former Officials and Legal Scholars Say Yes

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resident Donald Trump and his aides rarely go easy on their perceived enemies. But their attacks on the International Criminal Court — describing it as, among other things, filled with “lunatics ” and pledging to destroy it — are hyperbolic enough that you have to wonder:

Are they afraid the court will prosecute them?

That’s the conclusion many former government officials and legal scholars are reaching. They point not only to Trump’s anti-ICC campaign but also his administration’s broader efforts to defund, abandon or otherwise damage a range of global mechanisms that enforce human rights laws , from treaties to United Nations organizations.

Those moves come as the Trump administration is accused of a series of abuses, from killing Iranian schoolchildren to deporting asylum-seekers . At the same time, Trump is going to great lengths to protect his backers from domestic justice, including through his extensive use of pardons.

“They’re doing everything they can to evade accountability as they attack the very institutions and advocates charged with holding rights abusers to account,” said Uzra Zeya, a former Biden administration official who is now president of Human Rights First.

Spokespeople for the White House and the State Department deny such assertions. In statements to me, they reiterated complaints that the ICC threatens U.S. sovereignty and cast their campaign against it as squarely within Trump’s America First agenda.

“All of the administration’s actions are lawful and in line with the agenda that President Trump was elected to implement,” stressed Anna Kelly, a spokesperson for the White House.

But when it comes to the ICC in particular, Shakespeare might say the administration “doth protest too much.” By wildly overstating the court’s power, it is feeding the notion that it is genuinely worried.

The ICC has almost — almost — no ability to prosecute U.S. citizens. The U.S. has never joined the court, which operates under severe jurisdictional limits. One sensitive ICC case, involving Americans in Afghanistan, was shelved years ago . And Trump has already repeatedly penalized court officials for investigating U.S. ally Israel.

Yet, when I asked one Trump administration official whether they thought some of their colleagues could be prosecuted under international law, they replied: “Maybe.” The official also accused the court of being “insane” and “woke.”

Bill Cortese, a GOP operative close to the White House, was more direct, telling me some administration officials are truly worried about prosecution.

“There is a concern that, if Democrats come into power, that an unchecked ICC and other international institutions are going to unleash a wave of litigation against this administration and anyone associated with it,” Cortese said.

When Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently accused the ICC of “ waging a war against our country ” he was specific about some aspects of the threat the administration sees. He said U.S. Marines, Border Patrol agents and others carrying out the daily work of defending the U.S. from its enemies could be targeted by the court.

That is telling because under Trump, U.S. law enforcement and military officials have been accused of a notable number of human rights-related accusations that cross borders.

U.S. military strikes targeting individuals on boats in the Western Hemisphere are a top example. The Trump administration claims it is taking out drug traffickers, but it has offered little evidence about the identities and backgrounds of the more than 200 people it has killed.

Legal analysts told me that the boat strikes bear similarities to the alleged extrajudicial killings of thousands in the Philippines between 2016-2022 during then-President Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs.”

Duterte is now facing charges of crimes against humanity at the ICC , having been handed over by a succeeding Philippines government.

Trump’s mass deportation policies have further sparked allegations of international law violations. His return of asylum seekers to the places they have fled or to third countries where they face detention or other danger is one example. His dumping of hundreds of Venezuelan men into an El Salvador prison on questionable claims that they were gang members is another.

America’s actions in the Iran war, such as a likely U.S. strike on a school that killed scores of girls, as well as an energy blockade on Cuba, have led to accusations of war crimes and crimes against humanity . U.S. support for Israel in its war with Hamas in Gaza has spurred questions about American culpability in atrocities. (U.S. concern for the ICC’s treatment of Israel, including its issuance of an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, should not be underestimated as a driving factor in the Trump push to kill the court.)

The ICC is supposed to tackle the gravest crimes humans commit, including genocide. It’s also meant to be a court of last resort. That generally means the aggrieved can turn to it only if countries involved lack legal mechanisms capable of justice, and usually only if those countries are parties to the ICC.

An American could, in theory, face trial at the ICC, especially if they are accused of certain crimes on the soil of a country that is party to the court.

The odds that another government, or the relatives of America’s victims, will try to force an international reckoning could also increase if Trump succeeds in gutting domestic methods of holding him and his administration accountable.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has already largely dismantled Pentagon units that investigated civilian deaths and dismissed military lawyers he believes would impede U.S. “lethality.” Inspectors general offices have been weakened across government agencies. The Department of Justice, now led by the president’s former personal attorney, is viewed as increasingly unwilling to defy Trump.

There’s also the possibility that Trump will grant pardons to numerous people in his orbit before leaving office, limiting what a future president could do to hold him and his team accountable.

If other nations question how seriously the U.S. will take any rules that govern country-to-country relations, some governments may turn more to institutions like the ICC. The European Union, for instance, has slammed Trump’s anti-ICC campaign .

Some countries may invoke the concept of “universal jurisdiction” as a means of holding accused Americans responsible, although that is a tricky task . Such countries have other options, too. They can deny visas to Trump administration officials, impose economic sanctions or take more symbolic steps, such as parliamentary resolutions denouncing them by name.

“People involved in unlawful activity under this administration, 20 years down the line, if they happen to travel to Europe, it might catch up with them,” said Brian Finucane, a senior adviser with the International Crisis Group who previously served as a State Department lawyer under presidents of both political parties.

More than 120 countries are party to the ICC. U.S. hostility toward the court, however, goes back on a bipartisan basis to its founding at the turn of the century — though its approach to the court has been inconsistent. The court has certainly had its problems; its top prosecutor was just ousted over accusations of sexual misconduct .

Former U.S. officials and legal scholars I spoke to were largely dismissive of Rubio’s fear-mongering about ICC threats to U.S. sovereignty . Some also couldn’t help but point out that while Rubio has attacked the court, he has also invoked the need for international law in other situations , such as when condemning Iran for choking the Strait of Hormuz.

Many do fear the Trump crew will do substantial damage to the court, including by convincing some nations to abandon it. Venezuela has already said it will. Other countries may also mimic the U.S. in deciding to ignore international laws and norms.

But some scholars noted that pursuing such a public campaign against the ICC simply draws more attention to the court and to the Trump administration’s alleged crimes.

“They’re showing that international law actually matters,” said a former ICC prosecutor, whom, like others, I granted anonymity because of their fear of retaliation from the Trump administration.

A few people I spoke to have an especially dark read on all the U.S. moves. They suspect that Trump is signaling he intends to commit more crimes around the world.

“They want a blank check to use force,” one Latin American human rights lawyer told me.