Trump administration officials told lawmakers Wednesday that the U.S. does not currently plan to carry out strikes inside Venezuela and has no legal justification that could support attacks on any ground targets right now, according to sources familiar with the briefing by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and an official in the White House counsel's office.
During a secret meeting, lawmakers were told that an opinion issued by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel to justify strikes against suspected drug-trafficking vessels. first reported by CNN last month does not authorize strikes inside Venezuela itself or any other territory, four sources said.
The “execution order” that launched the U.S. military campaign against suspected drug vessels that began in September also does not apply to land targets, the people said, according to the sources.
Officials have not ruled out any possible action in the future, one of the sources said.
The existing OLC opinion includes a list of 24 different cartels and criminal organizations based in Latin America that the administration has the authority to target, according to one of the people familiar with the document.
But the Trump administration is seeking a separate legal opinion from the Justice Department that would provide justification for striking ground targets without having to ask Congress to authorize military force, although no decisions have yet been made about a domestic attack, a U.S. official said.
“What is true one day may very well be wrong the next,” the U.S. official said while discussing the current state of policy, noting that Trump has not yet decided how he will handle Venezuela.
A massive military buildup in the Caribbean, which will soon include the Ford aircraft carrier strike group, has raised questions about whether the United States intends to strike Venezuela. But the speakers said military assets were being moved there only to support counter-narcotics operations and intelligence gathering, two of the sources said.
The administration has so far avoided involving Congress in its military campaign around Latin America. High-ranking official of the Ministry of Justice told Congress last week that the US military can continue its lethal strikes against suspected drug traffickers without congressional approval and that the administration is not bound by the decades-old War Powers Act, which mandates working with lawmakers, CNN reported.
“President Trump was elected with a compelling mandate to fight the cartels and prevent Americans from dying from drug terrorism,” a White House spokesman said in response to CNN's request for comment. “The President continues to take actions consistent with his responsibility to protect Americans and his constitutional authority. All actions are fully consistent with the Law of Armed Conflict.”
The American military carried out 17 famous strikes against boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific since September, killing at least 70 people. IN several briefings Before Congress, including on Wednesday, administration officials acknowledged that they do not necessarily know the identity of every person aboard a ship before attacking it.
Instead, the sources say the strikes are based on intelligence that the vessels are linked to a specific cartel or criminal organization. Administration officials at a briefing Wednesday outlined the process they use to identify vessels and determine their targets, and discussed the types of intelligence that allowed them to link the vessels to the cartels, one of the sources said.
Democratic Senator Mark Warner, ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told reporters after the briefing“I think our intelligence resources are pretty good,” explaining that he believes the administration does “see” the movement of illegal drugs.
But he questioned why the administration had to use lethal force against the boats instead of intercepting them, as the Coast Guard has routinely done in the past, which could have provided evidence of illegal vessel trafficking.
However, House Foreign Relations Committee ranking member Gregory Meeks told CNN after the briefing that he had heard “nothing” that would convince him the strikes were legal. He also said the rapporteurs did not share evidence linking the ships or their passengers to the drug trade.
Administration officials have repeatedly said they have intelligence linking the vessels to drug trafficking but have not publicly released details.
“I can assure you that each of these strikes involved boats and cargo that were tracked from the beginning,” Rubio said in late October. “From the moment these things are put together, from the moment they are coordinated, we know where they are going. We know what their collection points are; we know what organizations they are involved with. These things are tracked very carefully.”
“Hundreds of boats pass through there every day, and there are many strikes that we avoid and which the War Office withdraws from because they do not meet the criteria,” he said in a statement to the press. “It goes through a very rigorous process.”
This story has been updated with additional details.
