“Deeply disturbing” and “one of the most troubling things I’ve seen”—that’s how top Democratic lawmakers have described classified video they recently watched of a series of strikes on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean in September. Now, they’re pushing the Trump Administration to declassify the footage for the public to assess if the attack was appropriate.
“I think it’s really important that this video be made public,” Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, who was among the select lawmakers who watched the video in a closed-door briefing last Thursday, told CBS News on Sunday. Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, pointed out that descriptions and interpretations of what lawmakers saw split along party lines, adding: “This is an instance in which I think the American public needs to judge for itself.”
“They ought to release the video,” Rep. Adam Smith of Washington told ABC News on Sunday. “If they release the video, then everything that the Republicans are saying will clearly be portrayed to be completely false and people will get a look at it and they will see.”
The Sept. 2 attack on the alleged drug boat, which killed 11 in total, gained renewed scrutiny after reports emerged that the U.S. military killed survivors of an initial strike in a follow-up strike. Since then, Congress members have raised questions on the legality of the military’s actions and who gave such an order.
President Donald Trump had posted a short video labeled “UNCLASSIFIED” on his Truth Social platform on Sept. 2. The clip appeared to show just an initial strike on what Trump described as “Tren de Aragua Narcoterrorists” who were “at sea in International waters transporting illegal narcotics, heading to the United States.” Trump added that the strike should “serve as notice to anybody even thinking about bringing drugs into the United States of America. BEWARE!”
Many lawmakers who were shown video of what followed have kept silent—citing the classified nature of the briefing with military officials—though some, like Himes and Smith, offered descriptions that hinted at potential violations of international law.
After the Thursday briefing, Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware offered few details, but he said there were actually four strikes in the attack—the first killing nine, the second killing the survivors, and the third and fourth sinking the boat. “It’d be hard to watch the series of videos and not be troubled by it,” he told reporters.
Himes, speaking after the briefing, said that he witnessed “one of the most troubling things I’ve seen in my time in public service,” saying that there were “two individuals in clear distress, without any means of locomotion.” Himes added, “Any American who sees the video that I saw will see the United States military attacking shipwrecked sailors.” Days later, the Connecticut lawmaker said on CBS that the survivors were “barely alive, much less engaging in hostilities.”
Republicans, meanwhile, maintained that the U.S.’s actions on the boat were justified, and have disputed claims from Democrats that the survivors were helpless.
Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee and was also among the lawmakers briefed last week, told NBC News on Sunday that the footage showed two survivors “sitting or standing on top of a capsized boat” before getting killed in the second strike. “They weren’t floating helplessly in the water,” Cotton said. “It looked at one point like they were trying to flip the boat back over presumably to rescue its cargo and continue their mission.”
Cotton also said that at one point, one of the survivors “takes off his T-shirt,” when he was asked about reports that the two were reportedly “waving overhead” after their boat was struck. But Cotton dismissed the survivors’ actions. “It doesn’t really matter what they were trying to do. What matters is they were not in a shipwrecked state, distressed, dog-paddling in the water at all.”
Smith, the Washington Democrat, echoed on ABC earlier descriptions from other Democrats of the survivors. “When they were finally taken out, they weren’t trying to flip the boat over. The boat was clearly incapacitated. A tiny portion of it remained capsized, the bow of the boat.” He also said that the boat in question was “adrift” and was being carried by the current and that the two survivors were “trying to figure out how to survive.”
Smith also disputed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s comments on Saturday at the Reagan National Defense Forum that the subsequent strikes were justified, given that the “couple of folks that could still be in the fight” had access to radios and could connect to other boats. Smith said, “They had no communications device. Certainly, they were unarmed.”
President Donald Trump had suggested there would be no issues releasing classified video of the Sept. 2 attack. Hegseth, however, has not committed to making it public, stating his department would “review the process” first.
“I would trust Secretary Hegseth and his team to make the decision about whether they can declassify and release the video,” Cotton said. “But again, there’s nothing remarkable about the video, in my opinion.”
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