Senior Democrat says Pentagon didn’t present conclusive evidence alleged drug smugglers killed in strike were gang members

By Natasha Bertrand, Zachary Cohen, CNN

(CNN) — Defense Department officials briefing congressional staff on Tuesday about last week’s US military strike on a boat in the Caribbean did not present conclusive evidence that the targets of the attack were members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, according to the senior Democratic member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and three people familiar with the briefing.

“They have offered no positive identification that the boat was Venezuelan, nor that its crew were members of Tren de Aragua or any other cartel,” Sen. Jack Reed, the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said on Tuesday after his staff were briefed by DoD.

The briefers also acknowledged that they could not determine exactly where the targets were headed, two of the sources said. Whereas Trump has said they were en route to the US, Secretary of State Marco Rubio initially said, “these particular drugs were probably headed to Trinidad or some other country in the Caribbean, at which point they just contribute to the instability these countries are facing.”

Another of the sources said the briefers disclosed that the boat turned around at one point after appearing to spot a military aircraft above that had been watching them. The boat turning around, reported earlier by the New York Times, raises more questions about whether it posed an immediate threat to the US that necessitated military action.

The briefers also said they did not have intelligence that the individuals were armed combatants or posed a imminent threat to US forces, the sources said.

“There is no evidence – none – that this strike was conducted in self-defense,” Reed said. “That matters, because under both domestic and international law, the US military simply does not have the authority to use lethal force against a civilian vessel unless acting in self-defense.”

In a statement, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said: “Representatives from the Department of War clearly relayed to congressional staff how the operation was within President Trump’s and the DOW’s legal authority to carry out the strike. DOW representatives also presented information that proved the government knew exactly who the terrorists on the boat were, which foreign terrorist organization they were connected to, and where their final destination was.”

CNN has asked the Republican Chairman of the Committee Sen. Roger Wicker to comment on the briefing.

Reed and 20 other Democrats also sent a letter to the Trump administration following this week’s briefing, raising additional questions about the legal justification for the strike and intelligence related to the alleged gang affiliation of those onboard the boat.

“The Trump Administration has yet to provide Congress or the American people with any legitimate legal justification for the strike, or any evidence to support its claims regarding the basis for this strike or the future strikes it has openly threatened to launch across the region,” the senators said.

President Trump posted last week that the US military had struck “positively identified Tren de Aragua narcoterrorists in the SOUTHCOM area of responsibility.” And administration officials have sought to make the argument that the 11 people on a speedboat that the US blew up in international waters were legitimate military targets because they were members of the gang, which the US has designated as a terrorist organization, and they were headed to the US.

The defense department briefers presented intelligence the administration had obtained of the targets speaking to each other, one of the sources said, which Trump alluded to last week when he said the administration had “tapes” of them. And that intelligence did suggest that the targets were drug traffickers carrying drugs on board the boat, that person said.

But the briefers acknowledged that they did not have sufficient intelligence to definitively conclude that the individuals were members of TdA, rather than just unaffiliated, low-level drug traffickers, the sources familiar said.

On Wednesday, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth reiterated on Fox News that the alleged gang members were “narcoterrorists” and said, “We knew exactly who it was, exactly what they were doing, exactly where they were going, what they were involved in.”

Pressed repeatedly on the legal justification for the strike, the briefers invoked the president’s authority under Article II of the Constitution to use military force when it is in the national interest, the sources said. The briefers said that lawyers had signed off on the attack but would not disclose which lawyers or what their reasoning was, the sources added.

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