Two Senate Democrats have launched an effort to reign in President Donald Trump’s war powers following his recent use of the United States military to target suspected drug traffickers in the Caribbean.
Trump recently ordered two deadly strikes on suspect drug traffickers; once on Sept. 2, and another on Monday, killing at least 14 people. The strikes have been widely condemned by experts as amounting to state-sanctioned murders, whereas the Trump administration has defended the strikes as justified given Trump’s designation of drug traffickers as terrorists.
The two Senate Democrats, Sens. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Tim Kaine (D-VA), filed a joint resolution on Friday challenging Trump’s authority to order strikes outside of responding to an “imminent armed attack,” and demanded that such strikes were “illegal” and “must stop,” according to a report Friday from the New York Times.
“While we share with the executive branch the imperative of preventing and deterring drugs from reaching our shores, blowing up boats without any legal justification risks dragging the United States into another war and provoking unjustified hostilities against our own citizens,” Schiff said in a statement. “This unauthorized and illegal use of our military must stop.”
Trump has championed his use of the military in targeting suspected drug traffickers, proclaiming the vessel’s occupants to be associated with the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. According to multiple Trump officials speaking on the condition of anonymity, however, the vessel had actually reversed course away from American shores prior to being struck, raising further doubt as to whether Trump had any legitimate authority to carry out the strike.
“President Trump has no legal authority to launch strikes or use military force in the Caribbean or elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere,” Kain said in a statement, while adding the Trump administration has refused to release “basic information” about the strikes to members of Congress.