Senator Rand Paul is on a campaign to knock President Donald Trump off of his warpath.
During an appearance on Fox News Sunday, host Shannon Bream asked the Kentucky Republican what information he wanted the government to provide about its military strikes in the Caribbean Sea. But Paul said that a briefing wasn’t what he was after.
“A briefing’s not enough to overcome the Constitution,” Paul said. “The Constitution says that when you go to war, Congress has to vote on it. And during a war then, there’s a lower rules for engagement and people do sometimes get killed without due process.”
“But the drug war, or the crime war, has typically been something we do through law enforcement. And so far they have alleged that these people are drug dealers, no one said their name, no one said their evidence,” Paul said. “So, at this point, I would call them extrajudicial killings.”
“This is akin to what China does, to Iran does with drug dealers; they summarily execute people without providing evidence to the public, so it’s wrong,” Paul said.
Both Iran and China have been known to secretly execute drug dealers, without providing due process. Paul, a Libertarian, has been an outspoken critic of the Trump administration’s policy on the strikes, pointing to the military’s likely illegal drones, as well as the statistical likelihood that some of its targets are mistaken.
The U.S. conducted its 10th strike on a foreign vessel on Friday, killing another six people without providing any actual evidence linking the boats to any drug cartel. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth claimed the ship was operated by Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang.
Trump also ordered an aircraft carrier strike group to the Caribbean in a major escalation of military tension between the U.S. and Venezuela. Last week, Trump stated his intention to expand his lawless strikes to dry land—bragging that Congress wouldn’t stop him.
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