Exclusive: Classified Justice Department opinion authorizes strikes on secret list of cartels, sources say

By Natasha Bertrand, Zachary Cohen, CNN

(CNN) — The Trump administration has produced a classified legal opinion that justifies lethal strikes against a secret and expansive list of cartels and suspected drug traffickers, according to multiple people familiar with the matter.

The opinion, which was produced by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel and has not been previously reported, argues that the president is allowed to authorize deadly force against a broad range of cartels because they pose an imminent threat to Americans. The list of cartels goes beyond those the administration has publicly designated as terrorist organizations, the people familiar with the opinion said.

The opinion is significant, legal experts said, because it appears to justify an open-ended war against a secret list of groups, giving the president power to designate drug traffickers as enemy combatants and have them summarily killed without legal review. Historically, those involved in drug trafficking were considered criminals with due process rights, with the Coast Guard interdicting drug-trafficking vessels and arresting smugglers.

“If the OLC opinion authorizing strikes on cartels is as broad as it seems, it would mean DOJ has interpreted the president to have such extraordinary powers that he alone can decide to prosecute a war far broader than what Congress authorized after the attacks on 9/11,” said Sarah Harrison, a former associate general counsel at the Defense Department who now works as a senior analyst at the Crisis Group.

“By this logic, any small, medium or big group that is trafficking drugs into the US — the administration could claim it amounts to an attack against the United States and respond with lethal force,” said Harrison, who had the outlines of the legal opinion described to her by CNN.

The Defense Department’s memo to lawmakers last week outlining the legal basis for a series of strikes against boats in the Caribbean — which argued that the US is in an “armed conflict” with the cartels, and said the president has determined that smugglers for the cartels are “unlawful combatants”— leaned heavily on the OLC opinion, sources said. Lawmakers have repeatedly asked DOJ and DoD for a copy of the legal opinion, including as recently as last week, but the agencies have thus far not provided it to Congress, the sources said.

The official nominated to be the US Army’s general counsel, Charles Young, told lawmakers on Tuesday during his confirmation hearing that the OLC opinion was created with input from lawyers across the US national security establishment.

“Senator, the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel opinion was derived through an interagency lawyers working group with the CIA, the State Department, White House counsel, Department of Justice, Department of Defense general counsel, chairman’s legal uniformed judge advocates were part of that decision, and the Office of Legal Counsel has issued an opinion on that, ma’am,” Young told the Senate Armed Services Committee in response to a question from Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen.

But Young said it would be up to the White House to release the opinion to lawmakers.

“It’s a matter of the discretion of the president under his Article 2 authority releasing that information to the Congress,” Young said when asked by Shaheen why the opinion hadn’t been shared with Congress.

“At this point in time, it’s not within my control in the current position that I’m in,” he said.

The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment when asked about the OLC opinion. On Tuesday, Attorney General Pam Bondi told lawmakers during a hearing that she wouldn’t discuss any opinion DOJ may or may not have produced when asked about the legality of the strikes against ships in the Caribbean.

“I’m not going to discuss any legal advice that my department may, or may not, have given or issued at the direction of the president on this matter,” she told the Senate Judiciary Committee.

To date, the US military has carried out at least four strikes on boats operating in the Caribbean, killing people the Trump administration claims are “affiliated” with drug cartels that have been designated as terrorist organizations in recent months.

The most recent strike was conducted last week, killing four people onboard the vessel, according to a social media post from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

At the Pentagon, some military lawyers, including international law experts within DoD’s Office of General Counsel, have raised concerns about the legality of the lethal strikes on suspected drug traffickers, sources familiar with the matter said.

Multiple current and former JAGs — military lawyers who are members of the judge advocate general’s corps —told CNN that the strikes do not appear lawful.

Pentagon lawyers, even if they have concerns, cannot overrule the OLC opinion, which is the prevailing legal interpretation of the executive branch. Many DoD lawyers are also reluctant to openly dissent, three current JAGs told CNN.

“The way forward is just to eat it and put your head down and act in accordance with [Secretary of Defense] Hegseth’s new policies,” said one. “No JAG is trying to rock the boat or get noticed.”

The Justice Department opinion forms a key part of the administration’s ramped up campaign against Latin American drug cartels, which also includes expanded authorities for the CIA to conduct lethal targeting and carry out covert action in the region, two people familiar with the matter told CNN. President Donald Trump updated CIA’s authorities around the same time he signed a secret directive ordering the military to begin striking Latin American drug cartels earlier this summer, the sources said.

CNN reported in April that the CIA had begun reviewing its authorities to use lethal force against drug cartels in Mexico and beyond, as the Trump administration moved to make taking on the cartels a major priority for the intelligence agency. The CIA is also already flying surveillance drones that are capable of being armed over Mexico.

A former senior intelligence official told CNN that there is a presidential directive, known as a “finding,” for CIA covert action related to the counternarcotics mission that dates back to the 1980s. That finding, however, is largely considered “open-ended” as far as defining actions the CIA can take, the former official added, noting it has been the subject of significant debate inside the administration since Trump’s second term began.

The administration had been working to update that finding to provide further clarity to CIA on the specific actions the agency needs to take in the region to further Trump’s counter-cartel campaign, the former official said.

The expansion of CIA’s authorities to include lethal targeting against cartel actors, however, is also fraught with risk. In Latin America, there are, comparatively, far more US-born citizens and green card holders — people who might have the standing to sue the US government if they are harmed. And that is a novel problem for the CIA, CNN has reported.

This story has been updated to clarify that CNN described the legal opinion to an expert.

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