By Patricia Zengerle and Bo Erickson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Top Trump administration officials briefed members of the Senate and House of Representatives on Wednesday about strikes on alleged drug trafficking boats off Venezuela, after frustration in Congress about a lack of transparency about the operation.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth met with Republican and Democratic congressional leaders and senior members of national security committees for about an hour, discussing U.S. strikes on vessels in the Caribbean and Pacific that have killed dozens of people since early September.
President Donald Trump’s administration insists those targeted were transporting drugs, without providing evidence or publicly explaining the legal justification for the decision to attack the boats rather than stop them and arrest those on board.
Several senators and House members who attended the briefing said the administration officials said the boats were carrying cocaine, not fentanyl, and explained their legal justification.
Some legal experts say the strikes may violate international law as well as U.S. laws against murder and prohibitions on assassination.
Trump’s fellow Republicans said they were pleased with the briefing.
House Speaker Mike Johnson described the intelligence about the vessels as “exquisite,” although he said the U.S. knew who had been on board the boats “almost to a person.”
Asked to clarify, Johnson said: “What I know from what I’ve learned so far, we have high reliability. These are the cartels. These are the people involved in it. They are doing this deliberately. These are not people who are haphazardly on a boat. They are intending to traffic into the country, and it does great harm to the American people.”
TENSIONS WITH CARACAS
The strikes have raised tensions between Washington and Caracas, more so as Trump ordered a major military buildup in the region and said his administration will carry out strikes against drug-related targets inside Venezuela.
President Gustavo Petro, leader of long-time U.S. ally Colombia, has been feuding with Trump over the strikes, whose victims have included Colombians. Trump has imposed sanctions on him.
Senator Mark Warner, the top Senate intelligence Democrat, said the administration’s failure to publicly explain its actions, including the legal justification, had damaged the confidence of the U.S. public and partners in Latin America.
“Kinetic strikes without actually interdicting and demonstrating to the American public that these are carrying drugs and full of bad guys, I think, is a huge mistake that undermines confidence in the administration’s actions,” Warner said.
Warner last week blasted the administration for holding a briefing on the strikes that excluded Democrats.
Lawmakers from both parties had slammed the Pentagon as recently as Tuesday for not briefing them on national security issues and said at times top defense officials appeared to be undermining Trump’s own policies, in a rare bipartisan show of frustration with the administration.
The Pentagon, which Trump has renamed the Department of War, on Wednesday denied accusations that its top policy official, Elbridge Colby, was not fully briefing Congress on important national security issues, suggesting a widening rift between the agency and senators from both parties.
(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle and Bo Erickson; Editing by Daniel Wallis)
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