The Trump administration has developed a secret legal justification for its missile strikes against drug cartel boats in the Caribbean that directly contradicts the president's public statements about the operations, according to exclusive information obtained by The Guardian.
Diverging Narratives: Self-Defence vs Overdose Prevention
While President Donald Trump has repeatedly told the public that the 21 strikes killing more than 80 people are aimed at stopping overdose deaths in the United States, an internal justice department memorandum reveals the administration's actual legal argument rests on a collective self-defence premise.
The classified Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) opinion, described by three sources familiar with its contents, frames the strikes as defensive actions taken on behalf of US allies in the region facing armed violence from cartels. This violence, the document claims without providing public evidence, is financed by cocaine shipments.
A White House official responded that Trump has not been making a legal argument in his public remarks, despite those remarks remaining the only publicly stated reason for the missile attacks.
Legal Framework and Questionable Premises
The legal analysis formalises discussions from a 21 July meeting of a restricted interagency lawyers group that included both career officials and political appointees from multiple agencies including the Pentagon, CIA, and White House.
Central to the argument is the designation that the United States has entered an armed conflict with drug cartels, allowing Trump to operate under the law of armed conflict rather than facing restrictions from federal murder statutes or international law.
The opinion finds that congressional approval isn't required because the administration satisfied OLC's two-prong test: the strikes serve national interests and aren't expected to be prolonged in scope, nature or duration.
However, the legal justification relies on a fact pattern about cartel activities for which no public evidence appears to exist. An administration official claimed intelligence shows each targeted boat carries approximately $50 million worth of cocaine, with proceeds funding sophisticated weapons, but this intelligence remains classified.
Expanding Military Campaign and Legal Challenges
The revelation of the secret legal memo comes as the military campaign against cartels shows signs of significant expansion. The United States has deployed extraordinary force to the Caribbean with the arrival of the USS Gerald Ford, the world's most advanced super-carrier capable of hitting land targets.
The legal justification has gained heightened importance amid this expansion, with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recently threatening Senator Mark Kelly with court-martial after he and five other Democratic lawmakers recorded a video warning military members to question unlawful orders, apparently referencing the strikes.
Legal experts have expressed skepticism about the administration's collective self-defence theory. Martin Lederman, a former deputy assistant attorney general at OLC during both Obama and Biden administrations, noted significant problems with the argument.
"A significant problem with this theory is that they still have not identified any state that's engaged in an armed conflict with a particular cartel," Lederman stated, adding that the administration hasn't provided evidence that another state asked the US to destroy cocaine shipments allegedly funding violence.
Senior administration officials acknowledged that OLC did not attempt to stress-test the purported goals of the cartels or verify the underlying facts determining the existence of an armed conflict, instead considering only the narrow question of whether targeting unflagged vessels in international waters was a lawful policy option.
