Washington — Military officials showed lawmakers video of a second strike on an alleged Venezuelan drug boat behind closed doors on Capitol Hill on Thursday, with one Democrat saying that “what I saw in that room one of the most troubling things I’ve seen in my time in public service.”
“You have two individuals in clear distress without any means of locomotion, with a destroyed vessel, who are killed by the United States,” Democratic Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut told reporters. Himes is the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.
Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Adm. Frank “Mitch” Bradley, head of Special Operations Command, are on Capitol Hill to brief the leaders of the Armed Services and Intelligence Committees for both the House and the Senate. The briefings were expected to focus on the Trump administration’s campaign against alleged drug trafficking boats off the coast of South America, including the Sept. 2 follow-on strike that has become a flashpoint on Capitol Hill.
“Any American who sees the video that I saw will see the United States military attacking shipwrecked sailors — bad guys, bad guys — but attacking shipwrecked sailors,” Himes added. “Now there’s a whole set of contextual items that the admiral explained — yes, they were carrying drugs. They were not in the position to continue their mission in any way. People will someday see this video, and they will see that that video shows, if you don’t have the broader context, an attack on shipwrecked sailors.”
The video of the strike has not been shown publicly, but President Trump said Wednesday that he would support releasing it.
The Pentagon has been under fire since the Washington Post reported that the strike included a second attack that killed two survivors of the initial missile. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has said the decision to strike the boat again was made by Bradley, the mission’s commander. The survivors were attempting to climb back onto the boat before it was hit a second time, a source familiar with the matter told CBS News on Wednesday.
Himes said Bradley also told lawmakers that “there had not been a ‘kill them all’ order, and that there was not an order to grant no quarter.” The initial Post report quoted an anonymous source as saying that Hegseth verbally ordered before the first strike that no one be spared. “The order was to kill everybody,” the Post’s story quoted the source as saying. Hegseth has denied the Post’s account.
The strike has sparked bipartisan concern from lawmakers and pledges to investigate. Though the administration has argued the follow-on strike was legal and justified, members of Congress and experts have questioned its legality, with accusations from some Democrats that it would constitute a war crime if the second strike targeted survivors.
The strike was the first of the administration’s campaign against alleged drug traffickers in the Southern Hemisphere, which has now destroyed more than 20 boats and killed more than 80 people. The strikes attracted scrutiny from lawmakers even before the Post’s report, since the administration is conducting them without authorization from Congress. The administration has argued it has the legal authority to conduct the strikes because it has designated drug cartels as terrorist organizations and U.S. troops are not in harm’s way.