In the days since news of the illegal “double-tap” air attack that killed two men clinging to a previously blown-up boat in the southern Caribbean, I have been thinking a lot about Lee Zeldin. Mr. Zeldin, before being appointed to lead the Trump Environmental Protection (ahem) Agency, was a back-bench member of Congress. He entered politics young, having served in the Army in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps — the kind of military lawyers now under scrutiny.
I disliked the snively Mr. Zeldin from the first time I met him, moderating a 2008 debate between him and Representative Tim Bishop. But plenty of First District voters had a different opinion: Mr. Zeldin defeated Mr. Bishop in 2014 amid a stupid non-scandal involving a fireworks show permit Mr. Bishop had been helpful in obtaining for a hedge-funder donor.
Among the things that bothered me about Mr. Zeldin was that he consistently exaggerated his military record, implying falsely time and again that he was a member of a famous paratrooper battalion and that he had been on the front lines in Iraq. Sure, politicians lie all the time, but the thing was that he had had an exemplary Army career — and had even jumped out of planes more than a dozen times.
He proved me correct, being among the very first members of Congress to support Donald Trump’s 2016 election bid. Four years later, Mr. Zeldin was wrapped up in trying to keep the president in office despite his loss in 2020. Mr. Zeldin was among the representatives who rose to speak just hours after the Jan. 6 riot was quelled to continue his fraudulent assault on the election results. He then took a shot at becoming New York governor, then was rewarded by Mr. Trump with the E.P.A. post, in which, frankly, he has been an unnatural disaster.
What I always found so creepy about him was that he seemed intelligent enough to know that many of the things he claimed publicly were B.S. — from the fireworks to the 2020 election — but apparently did not have the moral compass not to take advantage for personal gain. As a veteran of the Judge Advocate General’s Corps, Mr. Zeldin must have private doubts that the Pentagon’s boat bombings are legal. If he does, he is certainly not about to share them.