US Navy commander ordered second Venezuela boat strike, White House says
Leavitt said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth authorized the Sept. 2 strikes but did not give the verbal order to “kill everyone on board,” a claim first reported by the Washington Post.
A top U.S. Navy commander has ordered a second round of military strikes against a suspected Venezuelan drug trafficker, the White House confirmed.
“Admiral (Frank) Bradley acted within his authority and in accordance with the law” when he ordered the additional strikes, White House spokeswoman Caroline Leavitt said Monday.
Hegseth also denied giving the order, drawing bipartisan condemnation from U.S. lawmakers who have vowed to investigate the incident for possible war crimes.
“President (Donald) Trump and Secretary Hegseth have made it clear that presidentially designated narco-terrorist groups are subject to lethal attacks under the laws of war,” Leavitt said during a press conference on Monday.
“The president has the authority to eliminate them if they threaten the United States of America,” he said.
Press reports suggesting that Hegseth ordered the killing of everyone on board the ship have raised renewed concerns about the legality of U.S. military strikes on suspected drug-trafficking vessels in the Caribbean.
More than 80 people have died since early September.
The Trump administration claims it is acting in self-defense by destroying ships carrying illegal drugs to the United States.
“The stated intent is to stop deadly drugs, destroy drug ships, and kill the narcoterrorists who poison the American people,” Hegseth writes in X.
Hegseth spoke with members of Congress over the weekend, who expressed their concerns, Leavitt said.
Lawmakers’ concerns about the attacks have intensified since Friday’s Washington Post report.
Senator Roger Wicker and his Democratic counterpart, Senator Jack Reed, said in a statement that the Senate Armed Services Committee “has directed inquiries to the department and that we will conduct a rigorous review to determine the facts surrounding these circumstances.”
The House Armed Services Committee did the same, saying it was "taking bipartisan steps to obtain a full report on the operation in question."
Hegseth denied the allegations on Friday, calling them "fabricated, inflammatory and defamatory."
President Trump said on Sunday that he had 100 percent confidence in his defense secretary.
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