Grassley Rejects Democrats’ Request For Public Hearing Into Trump-Era Boat Strikes

All Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee have formally asked Chair Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) to hold a public hearing into the Trump administration’s campaign of boat strikes, saying they have “serious concerns” the operations may have violated U.S. criminal law.

In a letter sent Wednesday, the Democrats requested the opportunity to question Justice Department lawyers who provided the legal rationale for U.S. military airstrikes on suspected drug-trafficking vessels in the Caribbean. The lawmakers wrote that “since September, the Trump Administration has summarily executed at least 95 people in 25 known strikes on alleged drug smugglers in vessels at sea.”

The letter accuses Department of Justice attorneys who supplied the legal justification of potentially breaching ethical duties and asks the committee to investigate whether those opinions allowed unlawful conduct by military personnel. It specifically sought to examine an Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) opinion that the Democrats say enabled the strikes and might have encouraged extrajudicial actions.

On Thursday, Grassley declined the request, telling Courthouse News that a classified OLC opinion drafted this summer already explains the administration’s “lawful authority” to carry out the operations. He said he ensured both majority and minority members of the committee had access to the classified memo and emphasized that oversight of military operations primarily falls to the Senate Armed Services Committee.

“I personally made sure that both the majority and minority sides of the committee got access to the Office of Legal Counsel’s well-written classified opinion explaining the administration’s lawful authority to conduct these strikes,” Grassley said.

Grassley also defended the strikes as efforts to protect Americans from a dangerous product, arguing the actions were aimed at preventing harm.

Democrats sharply disagreed, calling the legal memo flimsy and the strikes themselves “war crimes.” Their letter warned that “there is not, nor can there be, any justification for state‑sanctioned extrajudicial killings,” adding that summary executions have no place in a constitutional democracy governed by the rule of law.

The dispute coincides with renewed pressure on the Pentagon to release unedited footage of a Sept. 2 strike off the coast of Venezuela. The strike in question reportedly followed an earlier engagement and is alleged to have killed two survivors of a prior attack. A Pentagon official, Pete Hegseth, told lawmakers the department would not release the full video to protect classified information, while Navy Adm. Frank Bradley — who ordered the second strike — later told lawmakers he was open to broader release of the footage.

The controversy has exposed a partisan split in Congress over whether the strikes constitute war crimes and how much material should be released to the public. Senate Republicans blocked Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) on Wednesday from forcing a vote on legislation that would order the Pentagon to publish the footage of the Sept. 2 strike.

“An attack on shipwrecked sailors is expressly prohibited by the laws of war,” Schiff said on the Senate floor, arguing that withholding the footage appears more aimed at shielding the administration from oversight than at protecting operational secrets.

The request for a Judiciary Committee hearing remains opposed by Grassley. Democrats have signaled they may pursue additional oversight avenues and continue pressing for more transparency about the strikes and the legal advice that preceded them.