The White House argued deadly military attacks Should not escalate to the level of “hostilities” against alleged drug trafficking boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific, which would require authorization from Congress under the War Powers Resolution (WPR).
The administration said the WPR, which Congress passed in 1973, would apply only if it would harm the U.S. and that attacks on alleged drug-smuggling boats, which have killed at least 64 people so far, are not endangering military personnel because they are “largely” conducted by unmanned aerial vehicles that fly from Navy ships.
“Here, the operation involves precision strikes by unmanned aerial vehicles launched from naval vessels in international waters too far away for the crews of the targeted ships to endanger U.S. personnel,” a senior administration official told The Hill on Monday, speaking on condition of anonymity.
A deadline of 60 days was set for the first time in the White House on Monday. notified The Congress launched its initial strike against an alleged drug smuggling ship. The WPR says the President must end military operations after 60 days if authorization is not received from Congress or the Commander-in-Chief can request a 30-day extension.
The administration official said the escalating attacks do not meet the threshold of “hostility” and that the Trump administration’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC)’s position on the matter is “consistent with its traditional approach”, pointing to legal opinions written by assistant attorneys general during the Clinton and Reagan presidencies.
in 1996 OpinionWalter Dellinger, assistant attorney general at the OLC, did not discuss the 60-day limit when addressing former President Clinton’s deployment of peacekeeping forces to Haiti, but he said the decision “would not involve the risk of major or prolonged hostilities or serious casualties in the United States or Haiti.”
Former Assistant Attorney General Theodore Olson said, “The Executive Branch has taken the position from the beginning that the WPR does not constitute a legally binding definition of the President’s authority to deploy our armed forces.”wroteReferenced in a 1984 legal opinion, by the White House.
Other administrations have made similar arguments. In 2011, the Obama administration said the WPR was not applicable because there were no US troops on the ground and fighting continued with opposition forces during the air campaign against Libya.
As attacks targeting alleged drug-trafficking boats continue, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced late Saturday that the US military shot down a “narco-trafficking” ship operated by a designated terrorist organization in the Caribbean, killing three people.
“During the campaign, President Trump promised to attack the cartels — and he has taken unprecedented action to stop the scourge of narcoterrorism that has resulted in the unnecessary deaths of innocent Americans,” the administration official said Monday.
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have asked the administration for more information about the legal reasoning the White House is relying on for the strikes.
Democrats on the House Armed Services Committee were not satisfied with last week’s briefing on the boat attacks,express disappointmentThe answers he received revealed the legality of the operation and the White House’s “end game.”
The administration official pushed back, saying, “By regularly informing and briefing the House and Senate on this important matter, the Administration continues to demonstrate great transparency in its communications with Congress”.
Senator Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Senator Jack Reed (D-I.), the panel’s top Democrat, published letter on Friday, where they demanded copies of orders issued by the Pentagon to attack the boats, legal opinions for military action and “a complete list of all designated terrorist organizations and drug trafficking organizations with whom the President has determined that the United States is in a non-international armed conflict and against whom lethal military force may be used.”
Reed told reporters Monday that the Defense Department has “assured both of them that they will provide information to lawmakers.”
“I hope this is the first step, not the last step, so that all of my members can understand what their reasoning was, what their plan was,” the Rhode Island senator said.
A bipartisan resolutionA bill led by Sens. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) that would block the strikes could come up for a vote on Wednesday, but discussions are ongoing, a spokesperson for Schiff told The Hill on Monday.
Kaine told reporters on Monday that he would like to put the proposal to a vote this week, but it would depend on the schedule of the upper chamber.
“It could be this week, we’ll see tomorrow what the schedule is likely to be, including budget issues and things like that. And there could be some down time or hiatus time where we keep it,” Kaine said.
