WASHINGTON — The escalating military strikes against alleged drug traffickers in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific that have killed 64 people do not rise to the level of hostilities that would trigger statutory limits on the operations, according to a statement from a senior administration official Monday.
The claim comes as Monday marked the 60-day deadline since the Trump administration’s first notification to Congress of military action against alleged drug runners that work for cartels that the White House has designated as terror organizations.
The deadline stems from the 1973 War Powers Resolution, which stipulates that the president has the authority to respond militarily to threats to the United States, but that after 60 days of military action he must seek congressional approval — or a 30-day extension — to continue.
“All of these decisive strikes have been against designated narcoterrorists bringing deadly poison to our shores, and the President will continue to use every element of American power to stop drugs from flooding into our country,” the official said.
“Even at its broadest,” the War Powers Resolution “has been understood to apply to placing U.S. service members in harm’s way,” the official said. In the case of the ongoing strikes, they said, weapons are fired largely by unmanned aerial vehicles launched from naval vessels at distances too far away to endanger American personnel.
Furthermore, they said, the White House Office of Legal Counsel believes that the operations do not rise to the level of “hostilities,” and cited legal opinions written by the assistant attorneys general during the Clinton and Reagan administrations.
In the 1984 opinion cited by the White House, former Assistant Attorney General Theodore Olson said the executive branch has taken the position “from the very beginning” that the WPR “does not constitute a legally binding definition of Presidential authority to deploy our armed forces.”
This line of reasoning is not new. During the Obama administration’s 2011 air campaign in Libya meant to help overthrow the former ruler Moammar Gadhafi, the White House said the War Powers Resolution did not apply, as there was no sustained fighting with hostile forces, or deployment of U.S. ground troops.
When it comes to the War Powers Resolution, said Project on Government Oversight policy analyst David Janovsky, “presidents have kind of taken it and run with it for 60 days, and then dared Congress to stop them.”
If the 60-day threshold is ignored, Janovsky said, it then becomes incumbent on Congress to use the tools it has to try to impose consequences, from using congressional oversight all the way up to its power of impeachment.
Calls for justification
The comments come as lawmakers have for weeks pressed the White House to release its legal justification for the strikes.
Senate Armed Services Chairman Roger Wicker, R- Miss., and ranking member Jack Reed , D- R.I., on Friday released two letters they previously sent Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth requesting the execute orders, legal rationale and designated terrorist lists underpinning the steady drumbeat of military strikes.
Democrats have publicly griped for weeks about the lack of information the Trump administration was providing about the strikes, including venting frustrations about being left out of a briefing held for GOP senators. But Wicker’s inclusion in Friday’s release underscores the frustration is bipartisan.
One of the released letters, from Oct. 6, also notes that at a classified committee briefing earlier in the month, “both majority and minority members requested additional information be provided to the committee with respect to the legal and policy underpinnings and other aspects of these operations to date.”
Defense Department press secretary Kingsley Wilson on Friday said several of the requested documents were made available to Wicker, Reed and their staffs last week, and that DOD provided its fourth bipartisan briefing to Senate staffers, also last week.
The White House official said the administration had “demonstrated great transparency” in its communications with Congress on the matter.
A Senate vote on a resolution introduced by Sens. Tim Kaine, D- Va., Adam B. Schiff, D- Calif., and Rand Paul, R- Ky., that would put limits on the hostilities is expected to come up for a vote as soon as this week.
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( Rebecca Kheel contributed to this report.)
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