Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is again passing blame for the bombing of alleged “drug boat” survivors earlier this year in the Caribbean Sea on to a Navy admiral who has been overseeing the military campaign. Outrage on Capitol Hill has grown over the incident as the admiral himself is preparing to brief lawmakers on Thursday. 

Admiral Mitch Bradley, who leads the U.S. Special Operations Command, was the one who made the decision to kill the two survivors, Mr. Hegseth asserted during a Cabinet meeting beside President Trump on Tuesday. Mr. Trump himself has said he would not have authorized the strike had he been in the room. 

“I wish everybody could be in the room watching our professionals — our professionals like Mitch Bradley,” Mr. Hegseth said after being asked again for clarification about how ordered the bombing and when. “I have empowered them to make that call.”

Part of the empowering of his uniformed officers included permission to launch follow-up attacks should there be any survivors. Mr. Hegseth said that he was in the room when the first missile hit that alleged drug-smuggling boat on September 2, though he left the room because of other scheduling obligations. He says that he only saw fire and smoke — not survivors — before he left the room that day. 

“I moved on to my next meeting. A couple of hours later, I learned that [Admiral Bradley] had made that … decision to ultimately sink the boat and eliminate the threat,” Mr. Hegseth said, adding that the commander had “complete authority to” launch that secondary strike. 

Mr. Hegseth blamed the “fog of war” for his inability to see any survivors after the initial strike. “The thing was on fire,” he said of the boat. “You can’t see anything.”

Despite the administration’s assertions that it was Admiral Bradley who legally authorized the strike under the power Mr. Hegseth delegated to him, many on Capitol Hill — including top Republicans — have raised concerns about that second strike.

On Thursday, Admiral Bradley himself will brief members of the Senate and House Armed Services Committee. Both Republican chairmen of the panels — Senator Roger Wicker and Congressman Mike Rogers — have both promised that there will be a serious investigation of the event. 

Senator Rand Paul has been especially incensed not only about the strikes on the alleged drug boats, but about Mr. Trump’s escalation with Venezuela, as well. 

“War powers belong to Congress, not the White House. The latest boat-strike revelations make that clearer than ever,” Dr. Paul wrote on X on Tuesday. “I’m demanding answers and insisting Congress reclaim its constitutional authority.”

The Kentucky libertarian is not only concerned about this second strike on September 2, however. He also says that the Defense Department very well could be killing innocent people who have nothing to do with any kind of drug smuggling. 

On Tuesday, Dr. Paul shared a letter on X from the acting commandant of the Coast Guard who declared that its analysis of alleged drug-smuggling boats which have been intercepted off the coast of Venezuela found that one in five of those vessels had zero drugs on board. Dr. Paul jokingly referred to Mr. Hegseth’s bombing campaign as the “reign” of “blow-them-all-to-smithereens.”

Mr. Trump himself seemed to show little interest in the whole bombing issue during the Cabinet meeting on Tuesday. He said that though he personally would not have ordered the second strike on September 2, he also has not been receiving much information about the Caribbean operations. 

“As far as the attack is concerned, I still haven’t gotten a lot of information,” he said. “I didn’t know anything about the second strike. I didn’t know anything about people.”