Maine Sen. Angus King said he walked away from a classified briefing this week with deep concerns about the legality of a double-strike on a suspected drug boat, adding he "saw nothing" to justify the killing of two survivors.
King also said he believes the public is entitled to see a Defense Department video of the second strike. A defense spending bill passed by Congress this week increases pressure on the Pentagon and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to release the video.
"If Secretary Hegseth can appear on Fox News the day after the strike with video of the boat being hit, there is no reason that the video of the survivors being hit about an hour later shouldn't also be made public," King, an independent, said in an interview Thursday.
King watched the full video of the September 2 incident on Wednesday during a classified briefing with other members of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Members of the House Armed Services Committee — including Maine Congressman Jared Golden, D-District 2 — also viewed the classified video during a briefing on the same day.
The Republican chairmen of the two committees, Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi and Rep. Mike Rogers of Alabama, have since said they did not see any evidence of war crimes and that they believe their panels' review of the incident is complete.
But King has previously raised questions about the legality of the second airstrike that killed the two individuals who survived the first strike on the alleged drug-smuggling boat. He said Thursday that watching the full unedited video didn't alleviate those concerns, however.
"Based upon what I saw and what I have seen and heard, I do not think it was a legal or justified strike," King said. "Ironically, the U.S. Defense Department manual of war uses killing shipwrecked adversaries as an example of a quote 'clearly illegal order.' And I saw nothing or heard nothing that I felt justified that action."
Golden's office confirmed that he attended the House Armed Service Committee briefing but did not respond to questions about whether he believed the second strike was legal and consistent with military rules of engagement. Golden is a Marine Corps veteran.
"The content of the briefing is classified, but he believes that the committee’s oversight work is never done," a spokesman for Golden said in an email.
King said he supports stronger enforcement against drug runners from Latin America but he believes the Coast Guard and law enforcement should continue to lead those efforts, as they have in the past. Instead of killing people in the boats, King said, the U.S. should arrest them and attempt to turn them against the drug kingpins.
King, who also sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said what he finds even "more disturbing" is the Trump administration's military build-up around Venezuela. The U.S. has an aircraft carrier, destroyers, a submarine and thousands of military personnel near Venezuela, with Trump vaguely warning of additional military action as he seeks to increase pressure on President Nicolas Maduro.
"Congress is the people's representatives. And if we are going to get into a war in Latin America, there should be some debate about it," King said. "The president should come to Congress and explain what the policy is, what the strategy is and what commitments are going to be required of American military personnel. So far that hasn't happened. And the whole history of our country is presidents don't get start wars on their own volition"
But Congress is headed home for the holidays, even as tensions mount between Donald Trump and Venezuelan leaders.
