Hegseth says he won’t release full boat strike video

The Pentagon chief also sidestepped a request for the House and Senate to view the Sept. 2 "double-tap" attack.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Tuesday rejected bipartisan congressional demands that the Pentagon release footage of an airstrike that killed survivors of a first attack on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean.

"In keeping with long-standing Department of War policy, Department of Defense policy, of course we're not going to release a top-secret, full, unedited video of that to the general public,” Hegseth said after a classified briefing with senators. "Appropriate committees will see it, but not the general [public]."

Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and top military officials spent Tuesday morning briefing the full Senate and House on the Trump administration’s efforts in Latin America. Lawmakers have expressed concern about the administration’s legal rationale for strikes that have killed more than 90 people, a military campaign that Congress has not authorized.

But while top leaders in both chambers have seen the footage, much of the House and Senate have not done so, including during Tuesday’s closed-door briefing.

“The administration came to this briefing empty-handed,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who has pushed for the entire chamber to view the attack. “And if they can't be transparent on this, how can you trust their transparency on all the other issues swirling about in the Caribbean? Every senator is entitled to see it."

Republican Rep. Don Bacon (Neb.), an Armed Services Committee member, argued after the House briefing that the Pentagon should release the video “to the public,” although he expressed support for the administration’s actions against drug groups. Members of the Senate and House Armed Services panels will view the video Wednesday.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) told reporters afterward that all senators should be permitted to see the video. She joined Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Democrats in favor of a failed Nov. 6 war powers resolution aimed at blocking Trump from taking military action against Venezuela.

“It's important that we individually be able to assess it and then make a determination,” she said.

Democrats who’ve pressed for Congress to more deeply probe the strike and its legality exited nonplussed with the administration’s answers.

"Nothing has changed,” said Senate Intelligence Committee top Democrat Mark Warner of Virginia. “They're trying to run out the clock in terms of holding off giving it to the rest of the senators so that the Senate doesn't see it before we break for the holidays."

Several Republican lawmakers said they received detailed explanations of the process for each strike and that it mirrors the Obama administration’s process for targeting Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. Democrats largely countered that the briefing left them no clearer on the strategy for President Donald Trump’s monthslong military operation in the Caribbean.

“I found the legal explanations and the strategic explanations incoherent, but I think the American people should see this video,” Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said in a statement after viewing the video. Schiff will attempt to pass legislation this week that requires the Pentagon to release the full video to Congress and to the public, which will almost certainly force Republicans to block it on the Senate floor.

White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, in a Vanity Fair interview published Tuesday, suggested that the aim of the military’s attacks on alleged drug boats is to topple Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.“[Trump] wants to keep on blowing boats up until Maduro cries uncle,” she said. “And people way smarter than me on that say that he will.”

But Democrats, and some Republicans, fear the administration is acting unilaterally and could start a war in the Western Hemisphere. Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), a senior Armed Services member, re-upped his call for Rubio, Hegseth and Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Dan Caine to testify in open hearings on the strikes — and for his Senate colleagues to see the unedited video. “We're all equal in this job,” he said.

“We represent people all across this country, and it's all of our responsibility to hold this administration and in this case, the Department of Defense, accountable for their actions.”

Sen. Chris Coons (Del.), the chamber’s top Democrat overseeing defense spending, scoffed at the official justification in the briefing for not releasing the video, saying it's “hard to square” with the Pentagon’s practice of routinely posting videos of strikes.

Hegseth, speaking to reporters after the briefing, touted a campaign focused on eradicating drug cartels that have been "poisoning the American people for far too long."

But the administration has not publicly released its legal rationale for the unorthodox use of the military in a law enforcement effort that usually involves the Coast Guard seizing drug shipments at sea.

"We'll continue to engage with Congress ... on this counter drug mission, which is focused on dismantling the infrastructure of these terrorist organizations that are operating in our hemisphere, undermining the security of Americans, killing Americans, poisoning Americans," Rubio added. “This has been a highly successful mission."

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