Concern over lethal strikes on alleged Venezuelan drug boats grows in Congress

WASHINGTON — Members of Congress are growing concerned over a lack of information from the Trump administration about the intelligence and strategy underlying its strikes on alleged drug smuggling boats in the Caribbean, six sources told NBC News.

Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill have left briefings about the strikes frustrated with the lack of information, said these people: five congressional sources and an additional source with knowledge of the matter. Some have asked for unedited video of the strikes, reflecting the kind of basic information they seek, but the administration has so far refused to provide it.

At a briefing a few weeks ago, Republican lawmakers were clearly upset with the answers they received, one of the congressional sources said.

“The Republicans were mad that the briefers were unable to answer questions about the legal basis for the operations,” the source said.

Some members of Congress — including Republicans who broadly support the attacks and the administration generally — are also concerned about the level of precision of the intelligence used to determine targets and the possibility that an American citizen could be killed in the operations, several of the sources said. A Defense Department spokesperson said members are being fully informed, and last week most GOP senators voted to defeat a measure that would have required congressional approval before more attacks were launched.

Lawmakers are also asking the administration to explain who was killed in the strikes, how they were positively identified as legitimate targets for lethal force, what intelligence indicated that they had possible links to drug trafficking gangs and what information showed that they were heading to the United States with drugs, the sources said.

They have also asked whether the administration has weighed the potential response from trafficking groups, including the possibility of retaliation inside the United States.

Since Sept. 2, President Donald Trump has ordered at least five military strikes in the Caribbean on boats his administration says were moving illicit drugs from Venezuela to the United States. Officials say 27 people have been killed in the attacks, the most recent of which Trump announced Tuesday^[1].

Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth posted short, grainy video clips of the strikes on social media. The clips include multiple edits, contributing to questions in Congress about whether the targets are definitely the drug smuggling boats the administration has said they are and about the circumstances and locations of the operations. Raw, unedited video could help reassure lawmakers about the origins of the vessels being targeted, as well as provide more context for them to better understand the circumstances under which the vessels are targeted or even where the strikes are occurring.

After the first strike, Trump said the boat the United States destroyed was linked to the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, but the White House has yet to provide evidence to back up that claim. Drugs were found in the water after one strike, an official from the Dominican Republic said at a news conference last month. The United States has not revealed evidence that drugs were on all the boats.

Asked about the lawmakers’ request for more information and video, chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said administration officials have kept Congress fully informed about the strikes and the legal authorities involved with frequent briefings.

“The Department of War has given numerous briefs and notifications to Congress that have extensive details of the policy, operations, tactical intelligence, and authorities invoked,” Parnell said in an email.

Parnell and the White House did not directly address why the administration so far has not provided lawmakers with access to unedited video of the attacks.

A White House official told NBC News, “The Department of War is working through additional requests for information from the Hill.”

The administration has provided six classified briefings to relevant congressional committees and lawmakers over the past month, Pentagon and White House officials said.

Although no one on the congressional side disputes that there have been briefings by Pentagon officials, members from both parties have come away from them dissatisfied and frustrated at the vague nature of the information that was shared, the sources said.

NBC News has reported^[2] that the United States has been preparing options for strikes inside Venezuela’s borders. Many lawmakers fear that extending the bombing to targets on land would pose a significant risk of civilian casualties, two of the congressional sources and the source with knowledge of the matter said. Targeting a vessel on the open seas is one thing, they believe, but striking a location on land brings more perils, including the possibility of inadvertent civilian deaths.

Some members of Congress also believe the strikes are illegal; others have concerns about their legality. The administration provided a letter to Congress in which it said Trump has determined that the United States is now engaged in an “armed conflict” with drug trafficking organizations and that it views members of those groups as “armed combatants,” using the same legal rationale the government has previously used to go after Al Qaeda, the Islamic State and other terrorist groups.

After the first classified briefing by Pentagon officials, which they felt was lacking, multiple lawmakers asked the administration to give access to unedited video of the strikes to members of Congress, who would view the video only behind closed doors, the sources said. Members believe the raw video could help answer some of their questions. So far, though, the administration has not agreed to the request, the sources said.

During previous administrations, Pentagon and intelligence officials in some cases provided lawmakers with classified, nonpublic video or photos of specific counterterrorism operations.

Although Republicans have privately voiced concerns about the lack of information and clarity about the strikes, last week all but two GOP senators joined in voting down a resolution that would have required the Trump administration to seek congressional approval before it launched more attacks.

The resolution went down to defeat in a 51-48 vote. Two Republicans, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, joined almost all Democrats in voting in favor. (John Fetterman of Pennsylvania crossed the aisle and joined the rest of the Republicans in voting no.)

Paul said that he believes the strikes have no legal foundation and that the administration needs to provide evidence to justify the lethal bombing raids.

“Is it too much to ask to know the names of those we kill before we kill them, to know what evidence exists of their guilt?” Paul said in a speech on the Senate floor.

Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., voted against the resolution but said afterward that he was still “highly concerned about the legality” of the strikes, as well as the deployment of U.S. warships and other resources to the Caribbean that could be needed to counter China in the Pacific.

“The administration should adhere to the Constitution and keep the people’s representatives informed on this critical national security issue,” Young said in a statement.

‘Secret list’

More than 20 Democrats in Congress wrote a letter to the administration last month posing a list of questions about the recent strikes and asking for a copy of all legal assessments of the attacks by federal agencies. The administration has yet to respond to the letter, according to a spokesperson for Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va.

Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., last week accused the administration of failing to inform Congress and the American people about all the groups being targeted and all the groups Trump has designated as terrorist organizations.

At a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, Slotkin asked Charles Young, the principal deputy general counsel for the Defense Department, to identify the drug cartels that are viewed as adversaries in the campaign.

“How many new terrorist organizations are we currently in armed conflict with, and could you name them?” Slotkin asked.

Young, who has been nominated to be the Army’s next general counsel, told Slotkin: “Senator, it may be more appropriate to discuss that with you in a closed session.”

Slotkin replied that “we couldn’t get it in a closed session” held with the Defense Department’s new general counsel.

“I was a CIA officer and helped with targeting. I have no problem with going after these cartels,” she added. “I have no problem designating terrorist organizations in general. But we’ve never had an instance where there’s a secret list of what I understand to be dozens of new terrorist organizations that the American public and certainly the oversight committees don’t get to know.”

In justifying labeling cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, officials often cite the high death toll from fentanyl use in the United States. But Venezuela is not considered a source for the illegal fentanyl in the United States, which is mainly smuggled over land routes in small, easily concealed amounts across the Mexico-U.S. border, not by boat through the Caribbean, experts say.

A claim by Colombian President Gustavo Petro last week appeared to reflect the concern U.S. lawmakers have about the precision of the strikes and the intelligence behind them. Petro wrote on social media last week that a boat struck on Oct. 3, which the United States portrayed as Venezuelan, was actually from his country and carried Colombian citizens, and he also criticized what he said was a broader political campaign against Venezuela.

In a statement, a White House spokesperson dismissed what Petro said, but it was unclear whether the spokesperson was rejecting his central claim, that the boat was Colombian with Colombian citizens on it, not Venezuelan. The spokesperson did not respond to an attempt to clarify the administration’s position.

“The United States looks forward to President Petro publicly retracting his baseless and reprehensible statement so that we can return to a productive dialogue on building a strong, prosperous future for the people of the United States and Colombia,” the statement read.