Trump has yet to provide Congress hard evidence that targeted boats
carried drugs, officials say
[October 09, 2025]
By AAMER MADHANI, SEUNG MIN KIM, MATTHEW LEE and
KONSTANTIN TOROPIN
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration has yet to provide underlying
evidence to lawmakers proving that alleged drug-smuggling boats targeted
by the U.S. military in a series of fatal strikes were in fact carrying
narcotics, according to two U.S. officials familiar with the matter.
As bipartisan frustration with the strikes mounts, the
Republican-controlled Senate on Wednesday voted down a war powers
resolution that would have required the president to seek authorization
from Congress before further military strikes on the cartels.
The military has carried out at least four strikes on boats that the
White House said were carrying drugs, including three it said originated
from Venezuela. It said 21 people were killed in the strikes.
The officials, who were not authorized to comment publicly about the
matter and spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the administration
has only pointed to unclassified video clips of the strikes posted on
social media by President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete
Hegseth and has yet to produce “hard evidence” that the vessels were
carrying drugs.
The administration has not explained why it has blown up vessels in some
cases, while carrying out the typical practice of stopping boats and
seizing drugs at other times, one of the officials said.
The Republican administration, in a retroactive memo justifying one of
the strikes last month, declared drug cartels to be “unlawful
combatants” and said the United States is now in an “armed conflict”
with them.
The declaration has raised stark questions about how Trump intends to
use his war powers. It also has been perceived by several senators as
pursuing a new legal framework to carry out lethal action and has raised
questions about the role of Congress in authorizing any such action.
Trump administration points to videos as proof
Asked about the lack of underlying evidence provided to Congress, the
Pentagon on Wednesday pointed to videos of the strikes, which do not
confirm the presence of drugs.
The Pentagon also noted public statements by Hegseth, including a social
media post following the latest fatal strike in which he said, “Our
intelligence, without a doubt, confirmed that this vessel was
trafficking narcotics, the people onboard were narco-terrorists, and
they were operating on a known narco-trafficking transit route.”
Lawmakers have expressed frustration that the administration is offering
little detail about how it came to decide the U.S. is in armed conflict
with cartels or even detailing which criminal organizations it claims as
“unlawful combatants.”
Independent Sen. Angus King of Maine said Wednesday that he and other
members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, in a classified briefing
this week, were denied access to the Pentagon’s legal opinion about
whether the boat strikes adhered to U.S. law.
His comments came at a confirmation hearing for Joshua Simmons, a top
legal adviser to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, to be the CIA’s next
general counsel. At the hearing, Simmons refused to say whether he had
partaken in any deliberations over the targeting of cartels in the
Caribbean, saying any legal advice he gave Rubio or other U.S. officials
would’ve been confidential.
Attorney General Pam Bondi was pressed at a Senate hearing Tuesday about
what advice she's provided Trump to legally justify the strikes. She
said, “I’m not going to discuss any legal advice that my department may
or may not have given or issued at the direction of the president.”
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President Donald Trump speaks during a roundtable meeting on antifa
in the State Dining Room at the White House, Wednesday, Oct. 8,
2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
A White House official suggested that lawmakers were being
disingenuous with their criticism and that the Trump administration
has been “much more forthcoming” with the legal rationale than
Democratic President Barack Obama’s administration was when it
carried out strikes targeting militants in the Middle East.
The official, who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke
on the condition of anonymity, said Pentagon officials have held six
separate classified briefings to Congress on the operations.
Trump administration officials have argued that the strikes are
necessary acts of self-defense as cartels funnel drugs into the
United States that they say are leading to thousands of U.S. deaths.
While Venezuela produces cocaine, the bulk of it is sent to Europe.
A few in the administration are said to be driving the push for
strikes
Trump has largely bypassed traditional interagency processes in
formulating his strategy to carry out strikes against drug cartels,
according to the U.S. officials and a person familiar with the
matter who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive
matter.
A small group of top administration officials — including Rubio,
Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau and Trump aide Stephen
Miller — has driven the push to carry out the fatal strikes,
officials said.
Rubio, dating back to his days in the Senate, has advocated for
taking a harder line on Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
During Trump’s first term, Maduro was indicted on U.S. federal drug
charges, including narcoterrorism and conspiracy to import cocaine.
This year, the Justice Department doubled a reward for information
leading to Maduro’s arrest to $50 million, accusing him of being
“one of the largest narco-traffickers in the world.”
Trump has focused attention on the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua,
which he claims is serving as “front” for Maduro, and said members
of the gang were in the first boat targeted last month. No details
on alleged affiliations have been released in the three other
strikes.
Maduro was sworn in for a third six-year term in January despite
credible evidence that he lost last year's election. The U.S.
government, along with several other Western nations, does not
recognize Maduro’s claim to victory and instead points to tally
sheets collected by the opposition coalition showing that its
candidate, Edmundo González, won by more than a two-to-one margin.
A pause in diplomacy
Early in his term, however, Trump dispatched special envoy Richard
Grenell to Caracas to meet with Maduro. Six Americans who had been
detained in Venezuela were freed by Maduro's government during
Grenell's visit.
But diplomatic efforts with Caracas have been largely paused in
recent months, with Grenell mostly sidelined, said the person
familiar with the matter and a congressional aide, who was not
authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of
anonymity.
Maduro says the boat strikes are an attempt to undercut his
authority and try to foment unrest that would lead to his ouster
from power.
The State Department pushed back against the notion that the
administration had been involved in anything other than an operation
targeting drug traffickers.
“Maduro is not the legitimate leader of Venezuela; he’s a fugitive
of American justice who undermines regional security and poisons
Americans and we want to see him brought to justice,” said Tommy
Pigott, a State Department spokesman. “The U.S. is engaged in a
counter-drug cartel operation and any claim that we are coordinating
with anyone on anything other than this targeted effort is
completely false.”
—
AP writer Joshua Goodman in Miami contributed reporting.
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