NEWS: Trump officials discussed illegal “boat strikes” years ago

White House aides in the first administration wanted to know if airstrikes against unarmed civilians would be legal.

Bottom Line Up Front

Trump administration officials inquired whether the president could carry out boat strikes against unarmed civilians as far back as 2018 — and were warned that it was illegal. The resurfaced revelations come as Congress probes whether Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and others engaged in potential war crimes or even murder in directing lethal strikes against boats in the Caribbean.

WHAT HAPPENED

Years before the world saw a grainy Pentagon video of a Trump-ordered missile strike obliterating a drug boat in the Caribbean, senior Trump officials were already probing a disturbing question: Could the U.S. government legally launch airstrikes on unarmed civilians in boats?

I know, because I was in the room.

That was in 2018. We were flying back from a presidential visit to a counter-drug operations center in Key West, Florida. The goal of that trip had been to focus Donald Trump on fentanyl trafficking and how to lawfully increase efforts to combat it. Instead, senior Trump officials zeroed in on something else entirely. They wanted to know how easy it would be to blow up boats.

In one of the exchanges on the flight back to Washington, Trump advisor Stephen Miller queried me and homeland security officials about the possibility. Were U.S. military drones in the region armed? Could they fire on a vessel in international waters? Were migrants aboard those vessels protected by the U.S. Constitution? And then came the crux of the inquiry: “Then tell me why we can’t use a Predator drone to obliterate that boat.”

As we explained to Miller, it would be illegal. International law prohibits killing unarmed civilians — whether or not the president wants to treat them like terrorists. He mused that we didn’t understand international law but dropped the line of questioning for the moment. I reported the conversation to others, worried the questions signaled an ominous direction the president and Miller wanted us to go.

Miller denied the exchange ever happened. But I documented it contemporaneously, wrote about it later, and the topic came up in subsequent conversations with people in the administration. Now, in a second Trump term, Miller seems to have brought that exact vision to life. Indeed, he has reportedly taken a leading role in pushing for the policy that he once denied having discussed in the first term.

As a result, the Defense Department has been carrying out attacks that echo what Miller floated more than seven years ago: a strike on a boat filled not with battlefield combatants, but with civilians who posed no imminent threat.

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WHY IT MATTERS

This weekend, reporting from CNN and The Washington Post revealed alarming new details about the September 2nd strike on a Venezuelan “narco-vessel.” According to multiple sources, the first missile hit the boat, killing several individuals and leaving survivors clinging to debris. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth allegedly ordered forces to “kill everyone.” As a result, U.S. operators launched a second strike, killing the remaining survivors in the water and sinking the vessel.

If confirmed, that second strike — a so-called “double tap” against people already incapacitated — would be flatly illegal under the laws of war. It echoes tactics long condemned when used by authoritarian regimes and terrorist groups. And it’s already been met with widespread condemnation.

We spoke about this at length on this morning’s DEFIANCE Radio broadcast. Listen by clicking the image below, or keep reading for the rest of the story.

Members of Congress from both parties reacted with rare alarm over the weekend. Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH) called it “Completely outside anything discussed with Congress… illegal if true.” Meanwhile, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) said it “rises to the level of a war crime” and Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), a former Navy combat pilot, noted that individuals in the chain of command “stepped over a line they should never step over.”

The top defense committees in Congress are now preparing probes into the strikes, including hauling Pentagon leaders up to Capitol Hill to testify under oath.

Hegseth denies wrongdoing, insisting the strikes were “lawful,” while Trump claimed yesterday he knew nothing about the second attack and likely wouldn’t have supported it — a distancing move that has raised eyebrows that the White House might be preparing to throw Hegseth under the bus.

But the real story is that this was not a one-off lapse. This was a culmination of years of policy planning. The Trump administration didn’t trip into illegality. It spent years working its way toward it, at least as far back as 2018, if not further.

The timing, of course, is especially significant. For over a week, lawmakers like Mark Kelly, Jason Crow, Chrissy Houlahan, and Elissa Slotkin (all national security veterans) have been blasted by the White House for warning U.S. troops never to follow illegal orders. Trump said their message was sedition. But that message — if a commander orders something unlawful, you have a duty to refuse — now appears prophetic.

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WHAT’S NEXT

If the reports are accurate, administration officials appear guilty of serious crimes. The rule of law depends on a bright line between law enforcement and the use of military force. No matter how heinous a bad guy is, whether he’s a drug dealer or a killer, the president isn’t allowed to just choose military force as the response. He cannot simply order up airstrikes instead of arrests.

But by designating cartels as “foreign terrorist organizations,” the White House allowed itself to invoke war authorities against people who are, at the end of the day, like any other criminals — dangerous, yes, but criminals who should be arrested and prosecuted, not summarily executed. That is the proverbial slippery slope that leads to unthinkable places, like a president attacking his own people with impunity.

On September 3rd, one day after the Caribbean strike, I wrote an article here on DEFIANCE.News titled “One Step Closer to Bombing Civilians.” In it, I warned precisely what might come next:

“The logic behind Trump’s Caribbean strike — that suspected criminals in international waters can be treated like wartime enemies — opens the door to even more chilling abuses of power.”

I described the 2018 exchange with Miller and the Trump team’s long-standing desire to use America’s war powers not just against terrorists, but against migrants, refugees, and even political targets. I also warned that labeling criminal groups “terrorists” was not a legal diagnosis but a permission structure for using military force where it does not belong. This weekend’s reporting appears to confirm the trajectory.

If a president can blow up a drug suspect in international waters, then he can blow up a migrant boat. He can blow up a fishing boat “suspected” of smuggling. He can blow up anything he damn well pleases — and call it national security. Never has an American president used wartime military force in such an obviously disallowed manner (and to kill unarmed civilians, no less, who appear to pose no imminent threat). Not until now.

Congress should not limit its review to the strike itself. It must investigate when and where this idea originated. It may have begun in the first Trump term with the president’s advisers asking whether killing civilians at sea could be legally justified, and perhaps earlier, with the belief that America’s war powers exist to serve the leader, not the law. That belief has essentially become standing U.S. policy.

The September strike — and especially that nakedly lawless second hit — is a deep betrayal of American values. If we don’t respond firmly and follow the facts to their ultimate source, and wherever they lead in the chain of command, then it will also be a preview of where presidential power is headed. This time, the victims were foreigners in a decimated boat. Next time, the targets could be far closer to home.

Your friend, in defiance,

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