US lawmakers are trying to pressure the Trump administration to release video of a controversial “double-tap” military strike by limiting Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth’s travel budget.
The incident on 2 September, in which the US carried out a second deadly strike on a boat in the Caribbean, has raised fresh questions about the legality of Trump’s campaign targeting alleged drug-carrying vessels.
A provision buried in a lengthy defence spending policy would restrict travel funds for Hegseth’s office until the Pentagon hands over unedited footage. The bill is expected to pass with support from both parties.
US President Donald Trump says release of the video is something for Hegseth to decide.
Trump denied that he had previously said he would have “no problem” with the footage being made public – despite that comment being made on camera as recently as Wednesday.
The threat from Congress to withhold money from Hegseth’s travel budget has emerged amid a clamour for information from lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle.
It is buried within a 3,000-page draft bill that is focused on approving next year’s defence spending. The annual bill authorises nearly $901bn in funding (£687m).
The bill’s final wording, which was first reported by Politico, states that Hegseth’s office may spend no more than three-quarters of the funds made available for travel for the year 2026 until it meets certain requirements.
These include an obligation to give the House and Senate armed service committees all “unedited video of strikes conducted against designated terrorist organizations in the area of responsibility of the United States Southern Command”.
The wording nods to the way Trump has characterised his strikes on boats in the Caribbean and Pacific. He says they are a matter of targeting designated terrorist organisations.
In his comments to reporters on Monday, Trump said each of the alleged drugs boats that had been sunk had saved 25,000 American lives, and claimed that drugs trafficking to the US by sea had all but stopped.
His administration has sought to justify its actions by saying it is in a non-international armed conflict with the alleged traffickers. Dozens of people have been killed in the months-long campaign, but the administration has not publicly provided evidence for its assertions of criminality in each case.
Experts have raised questions about the legality of the strikes, prompting concern from Republicans and Democrats alike.
Regarding the “double-tap” attack on 2 September specifically, the experts point out that the so-called laws of war decree that the parties in an armed conflict are obliged to pick up wounded survivors of a strike rather than attack them again.
Nine people died in the first strike on the vessel and two survivors were left clinging to the burning wreckage when it was struck again, killing them, according to the Washington Post.
The White House has repeatedly said it is working within the laws of armed conflict.
It says the second strike was ordered by a navy admiral, and not by Hegseth, who has become a focal point for scrutiny of both the strike and the White House narrative surrounding it.
Senior members of Congress who were shown the video in a briefing last week by that admiral, Frank Bradley, emerged with differing views.
Jim Himes of Connecticut, the senior Democrat on the House intelligence committee, said he found the video of the second attack “deeply, deeply troubling”.
But Republican Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas disagreed, calling the strikes “entirely lawful and needful”.
Trump has previously posted video of the first strike from 2 September, and continues to be asked whether he will release video of the second.
Last Wednesday, the president responded to an on-camera question about the video from an ABC News reporter by saying: “I don’t know what they have, but whatever they have, we’d certainly release, no problem.”
Five days later, he responded to a question from the same network by saying: “I didn’t say that. That’s – you said that, I didn’t say that.”
He went on to clarify: “Whatever Pete Hegseth wants to do is OK with me.”
In his most recent remarks on the subject, Hegseth was noncommittal on the subject, saying: “We’re reviewing the process, and we’ll see.”
Hegseth, along with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Dan Caine, the chairman of the Join Chiefs of Staff, is due to brief top congressional lawmakers on Tuesday afternoon, two sources told CBS.
By BBC News
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