Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) has shot down a demand from every Democrat on the panel for a public hearing on the Trump administration’s drug boat strike campaign in the Caribbean.
The issue at hand is the administration’s series of military airstrikes targeting suspected drug trafficking vessels.
The U.S. military has launched at least 25 strikes since September, killing 95 narco-terrorists so far.
The campaign has prompted Democrats to cry foul over potential violations of U.S. law.
Nevertheless, Grassley stands firm on the campaign’s legal grounding.
Since September, the Trump administration has authorized at least 25 known strikes on boats suspected of drug smuggling in the Caribbean.
Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, clearly rattled, penned a letter on Wednesday to Grassley.
They are demanding a public hearing to question Justice Department officials about the legal rationale behind these operations.
They’re waving red flags, suggesting that these strikes might infringe upon U.S. criminal statutes.
On Thursday, Grassley put his foot down, rejecting the Democrats’ plea for a public showdown over the strikes.
He pointed to a classified Justice Department opinion from earlier this summer, arguing it provides solid legal cover for the administration’s actions.
“I personally made sure that both the majority and minority sides of the committee got access to the Office of Legal Counsel’s well-written classified opinion explaining the administration’s lawful authority to conduct these strikes,” Grassley said.
Democrats aren’t buying Grassley’s reasoning, dismissing the legal opinion as flimsy and branding the strikes as potential war crimes.
However, the claims are sure to raise eyebrows among conservatives who see drug cartels as the real criminals who are flooding American streets with narcotics.
“There is not, nor can there be, any justification for state-sanctioned extrajudicial killings,” the Democratic members of the committee declared.
“Summary executions have no place in a constitutional democracy operating under the rule of law, no matter how heinous the accusations a government makes against someone.”
Adding to the drama, Democrats this week ramped up pressure on the Pentagon to release unedited footage of a second strike on September 2 near Venezuela, where two survivors of an earlier hit were killed.
War Secretary Pete Hegseth rebuffed the request on Tuesday, citing classified information, though Navy Adm. Frank Bradley hinted a day later at possibly wider release.
Meanwhile, Senate Republicans blocked an attempt by Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) on Wednesday evening to force a vote on mandating the Pentagon to publish the video.
READ MORE – Fetterman Backs Trump’s Narco-Terrorist Drug Boat Strikes
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