White House blew past legal concerns in deadly strikes on drug boats

From the ear­li­est days of his pres­i­den­cy, Don­ald Trump and his top aides pushed to autho­rize lethal strikes on drug traf­fick­ers oper­at­ing through­out the West­ern Hemi­sphere — a plan that raised deep legal con­cerns with­in the U.S. gov­ern­ment. Over the past year, the admin­is­tra­tion repeat­ed­ly bypassed or removed lawyers who ques­tioned whether such actions were law­ful, accord­ing to mul­ti­ple cur­rent and for­mer offi­cials famil­iar with inter­nal debates.

A Bold and Controversial Strategy

As Trump weighed mil­i­tary options against Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro and ordered U.S. war­ships to the Caribbean and Pacif­ic, his admin­is­tra­tion also explored using unprece­dent­ed force against drug car­tels. The Pen­ta­gon was already con­duct­ing dead­ly attacks on small boats alleged­ly trans­port­ing nar­cotics, deploy­ing ships, air­craft, and troops under the mis­sion dubbed Oper­a­tion South­ern Spear — report­ed­ly result­ing in over 80 deaths in 21 strikes.

Accord­ing to sev­er­al sources, Trump and his senior advis­er Stephen Miller ini­tial­ly pro­posed using the CIA to car­ry out covert strikes. Plans were drawn up for a pres­i­den­tial autho­riza­tion known as a “find­ing,” which would give the spy agency pow­er to con­duct lethal oper­a­tions under the guise of counter-nar­cotics enforce­ment.

How­ev­er, lawyers across the intel­li­gence com­mu­ni­ty and oth­er depart­ments pushed back. They ques­tioned whether killing civil­ian traf­fick­ers — many of them low-lev­el smug­glers — could be legal­ly jus­ti­fied when these indi­vid­u­als posed no direct threat to Amer­i­cans. “There is no actu­al threat jus­ti­fy­ing self-defense,” said one per­son involved in the dis­cus­sions. “These aren’t orga­nized armed groups try­ing to kill Amer­i­cans.”

From Covert Action to Military Campaign

Despite the resis­tance, Trump’s team pressed for­ward. When the CIA’s legal offices hes­i­tat­ed, the admin­is­tra­tion shift­ed the mis­sion to the U.S. mil­i­tary. Offi­cials then adopt­ed a con­tro­ver­sial legal ratio­nale — claim­ing the Unit­ed States was in a “non-inter­na­tion­al armed con­flict” with des­ig­nat­ed “nar­coter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tions.” Nation­al secu­ri­ty law experts, both inside and out­side gov­ern­ment, lat­er dis­missed that argu­ment as unfound­ed.

By mid­sum­mer, the White House was con­sid­er­ing not just mar­itime strikes but even more aggres­sive mea­sures — includ­ing the poten­tial seizure of Venezue­lan oil fields and the cap­ture of Maduro him­self. “Pres­i­dent Trump is pre­pared to use every ele­ment of Amer­i­can pow­er,” said one senior offi­cial at the time, defend­ing the oper­a­tions as law­ful and nec­es­sary to stop drugs “flood­ing into our coun­try.”

Legal and Ethical Turmoil Inside the Government

Behind the scenes, the plan sparked tur­moil with­in the Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil and the Pen­ta­gon. Lawyers who object­ed were reas­signed or replaced amid a sweep­ing staff shake-up. Paul Ney, the Pentagon’s gen­er­al coun­sel and one of those who had raised con­cerns, was among those dis­missed. The NSC’s entire full-time legal staff was even­tu­al­ly gone.

The Jus­tice Department’s Office of Legal Coun­sel lat­er pro­duced a secret memo pro­vid­ing jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for the strikes, argu­ing that lethal action against “nar­coter­ror­ists” served a vital nation­al inter­est and did not require con­gres­sion­al autho­riza­tion. Pen­ta­gon spokesper­son Sean Par­nell insist­ed the oper­a­tions “are law­ful under both U.S. and inter­na­tion­al law.”

Still, many with­in the defense estab­lish­ment remained uneasy. “There’s no evi­dence these small boats qual­i­fy as legit­i­mate oper­a­tional tar­gets,” said one for­mer senior offi­cial. “This is not a war zone.”

The CIA’s Reluctant Role

By late Sep­tem­ber, CIA Direc­tor John Rat­cliffe appoint­ed his deputy, Michael Ellis — a for­mer White House lawyer — as the agency’s act­ing gen­er­al coun­sel. Ellis report­ed­ly sup­port­ed the find­ing autho­riz­ing CIA involve­ment in lethal oper­a­tions. In Octo­ber, Trump pub­licly acknowl­edged sign­ing the covert autho­riza­tion, break­ing the usu­al secre­cy sur­round­ing such actions.

Inside the agency, how­ev­er, con­cern grew. Some CIA offi­cers feared a repeat of past scan­dals like Iran-Con­tra or post‑9/11 ren­di­tion pro­grams. “Is it legal just to kill the guy if he’s not threat­en­ing you?” one for­mer offi­cial asked. “This isn’t coun­tert­er­ror­ism — it’s some­thing else.”

Mounting Doubts and Warnings

The Pentagon’s own offi­cers expressed anx­i­ety about their poten­tial legal expo­sure. Some demand­ed writ­ten con­fir­ma­tion that the strikes were law­ful before par­tic­i­pat­ing. None was pro­vid­ed. Mean­while, sev­er­al Demo­c­ra­t­ic law­mak­ers — all vet­er­ans or intel­li­gence pro­fes­sion­als — released a viral video urg­ing mil­i­tary and intel­li­gence per­son­nel to refuse ille­gal orders. “No one has to car­ry out orders that vio­late the law or our Con­sti­tu­tion,” they said.

Trump quick­ly fired back on Truth Social, call­ing their state­ment “dan­ger­ous to our coun­try.” With­in an hour, he accused the law­mak­ers of “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, pun­ish­able by DEATH!”

A High-Stakes Gamble

For Trump, the cam­paign against “nar­coter­ror­ists” rep­re­sents an exten­sion of his hard-line stance on drugs and bor­der secu­ri­ty. For crit­ics — includ­ing many with­in the intel­li­gence and mil­i­tary com­mu­ni­ties — it’s a dan­ger­ous over­reach that tests the bound­aries of U.S. and inter­na­tion­al law.

As one for­mer offi­cial put it, “There’s a dif­fer­ence between tak­ing out a ter­ror­ist mas­ter­mind and sink­ing a fish­ing boat full of smug­glers. The ques­tion isn’t whether we can do it — it’s whether we should.”