A top House Republican plans to summon the senior military lawyer present during a controversial U.S. strike that killed the survivors of an initial attack on their alleged drug smuggling boat in the waters off Venezuela.
Rep. Mike D. Rogers (R-Alabama), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said in a short interview at the Capitol that he wants Adm. Frank M. Bradley, the commander who oversaw the Sept. 2 operation, to return to Washington next week and provide a briefing for all committee members.
“I want the lawyer there, too,” Rogers said.
The request to hear from another official involved in the operation suggests Rogers wants the committee to have a firsthand picture of the legal considerations that preceded Bradley’s order to strike the boat again despite the presence of survivors. The admiral spent about eight hours on Capitol Hill last week meeting with select lawmakers, Rogers among them. The Washington Post on Thursday published a detailed account of the revelations that emerged from those classified discussions.
Earlier this week, Rogers had signaled that he planned to end his committee’s probe, one of two underway in Congress, telling reporters he was satisfied with the information he had been provided. He had previously expressed a desire for Bradley to return to Capitol Hill so more lawmakers could hear directly from the admiral and see video footage of the operation.
A spokesperson for Rogers said the committee was working to schedule the next briefing.
A spokesperson for U.S. Special Operations Command, where Bradley is the top officer, could not confirm whether there would be another briefing or if a request had been made for the military lawyer to attend.
The Sept. 2 operation killed 11 people, including the two survivors. After The Post reported late last month that Bradley ordered the follow-on attack, lawmakers and legal experts have questioned whether the law of armed conflict had been violated by killing defenseless targets. The House and Senate Armed Services committees quickly opened separate inquiries.
At the core of Bradley’s defense of the second strike, according to several people familiar with his conversations on Capitol Hill last week, is his assertion that the attack was not directed at the two survivors but at the boat wreckage and any illicit drugs it may have sheltered. The people spoke on the condition of anonymity because the matter is highly sensitive and Bradley’s communication with lawmakers occurred in classified settings.
Ahead of the mission, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had given an order to U.S. forces to kill the passengers, sink the boat and destroy the drugs, people familiar with the operation have said. It appeared to Bradley after the initial strike that none of those objectives had been achieved, the admiral told lawmakers.
The military lawyer who advised Bradley during the operation, whom The Post is not identifying because they serve in a secretive unit, has emerged as a key figure as members of Congress seek to understand Bradley’s state of mind at the time of the strike. During such operations, military lawyers are expected to advise their commanders on the law of armed conflict, particularly in moments of uncertainty.
It is not clear what legal advice Bradley was given before he decided to strike the boat wreckage again, though the admiral told lawmakers he did consult with the lawyer on whether the men qualified as “shipwrecked,” or out of the fight, making them unlawful targets, The Post has reported.
Democrats and some Republicans have demanded the public release of a video documenting the operation. Hegseth, who has sought to distance himself from the fallout, has not committed to doing so.
Rep. Adam Smith (Washington), the senior Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, said that the meeting with Bradley next week would be classified and that he expected the full video to be shown for all committee members.
On Thursday, the Republican chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee suggested he would continue his panel’s inquiry into the early September strike.
“I’m going to listen to my colleagues,” Sen. Roger Wicker (Mississippi) told reporters.
Some members of Congress, including Sen. Mark R. Warner (Virginia), the senior Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, have requested the military lawyer’s written opinion of the strike and also Hegseth’s order authorizing the operation — the first in a legally disputed campaign that since September has killed nearly 90 people.
Democrats like Warner, alongside many retired military lawyers, have argued that all of the strikes violate the laws of war by killing alleged drug traffickers, whom they say are criminals motivated by profit rather than combatants waging war against Americans, as the Trump administration claims.
On Wednesday, the House passed its annual marquee defense bill, which would withhold 25 percent of Hegseth’s travel budget until he shares with Congress the full video of the strike and other related information about the administration’s military activities in Latin America.
Alex Horton contributed to this report.
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