Top Republicans have joined Democrats in demanding answers about the growing military campaign that the Trump administration says is targeting drug traffickers.
A top Republican and Democrat in Congress suggested Sunday that the U.S. military may have committed a war crime in President Donald Trump’s offensive against shipping in the Caribbean, after a news report said that during one of those attacks, an additional strike was ordered to kill survivors.
The comments came in response to a Washington Post report on Friday that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had issued a verbal order to kill everyone on board ships suspected of drug smuggling, and that that prompted a military commander to carry out a second strike to kill those who initially survived an attack in early September.
“Obviously, if that happened, it would be a very dangerous thing, and I agree it would be an illegal act,” Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio and former chairman of the Intelligence Committee, told CBS’ Face the Nation.
Sen. Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, told CBS that if the report is true, the attack “amounts to a war crime.” On CNN, when asked whether he believed a second strike to kill survivors constituted a war crime, Sen. Mark Kelly, Democrat of Arizona, replied: “It appears so.”
The lawmakers’ comments came after top Republicans and Democrats on two congressional committees overseeing the Pentagon pledged over the weekend to increase their scrutiny of US attacks on shipping in the Caribbean in the wake of the report. Turner said the article only served to heighten lawmakers’ serious doubts about the process.
He added, “Congress is deeply concerned about the attacks on so-called drug ships in the Caribbean and Pacific, and about the legal justification that has been provided.” “But this falls completely outside of everything that has been discussed with Congress, and there is an ongoing investigation.”
The investigations by the House and Senate Armed Services Committees represent the toughest congressional scrutiny yet of Trump’s escalating military offensive, which he says is aimed at cracking down on drug traffickers and was carried out without congressional approval or consultation.
It marks a notable move by Republican lawmakers, who have spent much of the year kowtowing to Trump and failing to oversee his actions.
Roger Wicker, a Mississippi senator and Republican chairman of the Armed Services Committee, and Jack Reed, a Rhode Island senator and the committee’s top Democrat, said late Friday they had “directed inquiries” to the Defense Department.
“We will conduct rigorous oversight to determine the facts surrounding these circumstances,” they wrote.
The House Armed Services Committee did the same on Saturday. In a joint statement, Rep. Mike Rogers, Republican of Alabama, the committee’s chairman, and Rep. Adam Smith of Washington, the top Democrat, said they were “committed to providing robust oversight” of the attacks on the ships and were “taking bipartisan steps to obtain a full accounting of the operation in question.”
The United States has strengthened its military presence in the Caribbean to put pressure on Venezuela. Trump administration officials have said they are trying to deter drug trafficking, and that the boat attacks, which have killed more than 80 people since early September, are part of an alleged official armed conflict with drug cartels. But members of Congress expressed concern about the legal justification used to implement it.
The Washington Post reported last week that in the first attack on a boat, on September 2, there were survivors in the water after the first missile hit and the military carried out a second attack to kill them on Hegseth’s orders. The Intercept also reported in September that the military carried out a subsequent attack to kill survivors of the initial attack.
In a statement on Friday, Hegseth denounced the newspaper’s reporting. He defended the military’s actions and said that officers made clear in all operations that attacks on ships were designed to be “lethal kinetic attacks.”
Speaking to reporters on Sunday, Trump expressed confidence in Hegseth. The president noted that he “did not want” a second attack that killed survivors, before repeating that he believed Hegseth denied that account of the attack. The Defense Secretary did not directly contradict the Washington Post reports in his statement on Friday, but called them “fabricated and inflammatory.”
Senator Chuck Schumer, the minority leader from New York, called on Hegseth to release “the full, unedited tapes of the attacks so that the American people can see for themselves.”
Democrats have repeatedly criticized the boat attacks, calling them illegal and likening them to extrajudicial killings. Kelly was among a group of six lawmakers who last month recorded a video reminding soldiers that they were required to reject illegal orders, though they did not mention any specific orders.
Kelly, who is being investigated by the Pentagon for his comments in the video, said on Sunday that he was “deeply concerned that someone in that chain of command crossed a line that they should never have crossed.” He also suggested that lawmakers put officials “under oath” in their examination of ship attacks.
Turner’s comments and Wicker’s and Rogers’ actions suggest that Republicans, too, were increasingly concerned about the scope and legality of the operations.
The committees’ promise to step up oversight also comes as a small number of far-right Republicans, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, have expressed dismay at foreign policy entanglements that they say run counter to the “America First” approach promised by Trump.
However, many Republicans expressed support for military operations in Venezuela. On Sunday, Senator Markwayne Mullen of Oklahoma, a close ally of Trump, rejected the newspaper’s reports and defended the administration.
Trump is “protecting America by being very proactive,” said Mullen, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Julian E. Barnes and Charlie Savage contributed reporting.
Michael Gould covers Congress for The Times, focusing on immigration policy and legislative oversight.
Julian E. Barnes and Charlie Savage contributed reporting.