REPS LIEU, RASKIN DEMAND DOJ INVESTIGATION INTO HEGSETH'S STRIKE TARGETING SURVIVORS CLINGING TO SHIPWRECKED BOAT

WASHINGTON —Today, Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Los Angeles County) and Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, sent a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi demanding that the Department of Justice (DOJ) open a criminal investigation into the Trump Administration’s lethal military strikes in the Caribbean.

The Members cite deeply troubling reporting that, on September 2, 2025, following an initial strike on a small vessel in international waters off Venezuela, U.S. forces carried out a second attack on two survivors clinging to the wreckage, raising serious concerns that senior Defense Department officials ordered or condoned conduct that violates both the laws of war and federal criminal law.

“To be clear, the entire Caribbean operation appears to be unlawful. Congress has never authorized military force against Venezuela; a boat moving towards Suriname does not pose a clear and present danger to the United States; and the classified legal memoranda the Trump Administration has offered us to justify the attacks are entirely unpersuasive,” wrote the Members.

Deliberately targeting incapacitated individuals constitutes a clear violation of the Department of Defense’s Law of War Manual, which expressly forbids attacks on persons rendered helpless by shipwreck. Such conduct would trigger criminal liability under the War Crimes Act if the Administration claims it is engaged in armed conflict, or under the federal murder statute if no such conflict exists.

Secretary Hegseth has offered shifting and contradictory explanations for the September 2 incident, including claims of confusion due to the “fog of war” and assertions that he delegated or did not personally issue an order to kill survivors.

Issuing or executing a general order to kill survivors is unlawful under any circumstances and “acting pursuant to orders” is not a defense when those orders are manifestly illegal. Any suggestion that classified or prior Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) memoranda could immunize the targeting of survivors after an initial strike is legally baseless. Prior OLC opinions were limited to congressionally authorized armed conflicts against enemy combatants posing imminent threats—conditions that are plainly absent here.

Even conservative legal scholar John Yoo, former Deputy Assistant Attorney General and author of the now infamous OLC “torture memos” which condoned and defended torture by U.S. officials, has said that the Administration violated both federal law and the law of war.

“Outside of war, the killing of unarmed, helpless men clinging to wreckage in open water is simply murder. The federal criminal code makes it a felony to commit murder within the ‘special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States,’ which is defined to include the ‘high seas.’ It is also a federal crime to conspire to commit murder,” wrote the Members.

The Members are demanding that Bondi investigate Secretary Hegseth’s apparent and serious violations of federal criminal law.

Click here to read the letter.

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