Lawmakers will hear from Navy admiral who ordered attack that killed boat strike survivors

WASHINGTON– The Navy admiral who allegedly ordered the U.S. military to shoot survivors of an attack on a suspected drug boat is expected to give a classified briefing to top congressional lawmakers responsible for national security on Capitol Hill on Thursday.

The information from Adm. Frank “Mitch” Bradley, who is now commander of U.S. Special Operations Command, comes at a potentially crucial time in the ongoing Congressional investigation into Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s handling of the military operation in international waters near Venezuela. There are growing questions about whether the strike may have violated the law.

Lawmakers are demanding a full accounting of the strikes after The Washington Post reported that Bradley ordered a Sept. 2 attack on two survivors to comply with Hegseth’s directive to “kill everyone.” Legal experts say the attack amounts to a crime if survivors were targeted, and lawmakers on both sides are demanding accountability.

Bradley will speak to a handful of senior congressional leaders, including the Republican chairmen and senior Democrats of the House and Senate Armed Services committees, and separately with the GOP chairman and Democratic vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

“This is an incredibly serious matter. This is about the safety of our troops. This is an incident that could expose members of our armed forces to legal consequences,” New York Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said in a speech Wednesday. “And yet the American public and Congress are still not hearing the basic facts. »

As Bradley answers questions in the classified framework, lawmakers will seek answers to key questions: What orders did Hegseth give regarding operations? And what was the reason for the second strike?

Democratic lawmakers are also demanding that the Trump administration release the full video of the Sept. 2 attack, as well as written records of Hegseth’s orders and possible directives. Although Republicans, who control the national security committees, have not publicly requested the documents, they have pledged to review them in depth.

“The investigation will be done based on the numbers,” said Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. “We will find out the truth on the ground.”

President Donald Trump has backed Hegseth as he defends his handling of the attack, but pressure is mounting on the defense secretary.

Hegseth said the aftermath of a first strike on the boat had been clouded by the “fog of war.” He also said he “did not stay” during the second strike, but said Bradley “did the right thing” and “had full authority” to do so.

Also Thursday, the Defense Department’s inspector general was expected to release a partially redacted report on Hegseth’s use of the messaging app Signal in March to share information about a military strike against Yemen’s Houthi militants.

The report found that Hegseth endangered U.S. personnel and its mission by using Signal, according to two people familiar with the findings. The Pentagon, however, presented the report as an exoneration of Hegseth.

At the time of the attack, Bradley was the commander of Joint Special Operations Command, overseeing coordinated operations among the Army’s elite special operations units from Fort Bragg in North Carolina. About a month after the attack, he was promoted to commander of U.S. Special Operations Command.

His military career, spanning more than three decades, was spent primarily with elite Navy SEALs and commanding joint operations. He was one of the first special forces officers to be deployed to Afghanistan after the September 11 attacks. His latest promotion to admiral was approved by a unanimous vote in the Senate earlier this year, and Democratic and Republican senators praised his record.

“I expect Bradley to tell the truth and shed light on what really happened,” said Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, adding that he had “great respect for his record.”

Sen. Thom Tillis, a Republican from North Carolina, described Bradley as one of the “rock solid” and “most extraordinary people who have ever served in the military.”

But lawmakers like Tillis have also made clear that they expect accountability if survivors are found to have been targeted. “Anyone in the chain of command who is responsible for this, who has a vision for this, must be held accountable,” he said.

The scope of the investigation is unclear, but there are other documents about the strike that could explain what happened. Obtaining that information, however, will largely depend on action by Republican lawmakers — a potentially painful prospect for them if it puts them at odds with the president.

Sen. Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, said he and Wicker formally requested the executive orders authorizing the operations and full videos of the strikes. They also seek intelligence to identify ships as legitimate targets, rules of engagement for attacks and any criteria used to determine who was a combatant and who was a civilian.

Military officials knew there were survivors in the water after the initial strike but carried out the next strike under the pretense that it would sink the ship, according to two people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity. What remains unclear — and what lawmakers hope to clarify in their briefing with Bradley — is who ordered the strikes and whether Hegseth was involved, one of the sources said.

Republican lawmakers close to Trump sought to defend Hegseth this week, supporting the military campaign against drug cartels that the president considers “narcoterrorists.”

“I don’t see anything wrong with what happened,” said Sen. Markwayne Mullin, Republican of Oklahoma, arguing that the Trump administration was right to use its war powers against drug cartels.

More than 80 people were killed in the series of strikes that began in September. And for campaign critics like Sen. Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, pressing questions about the legality of killing survivors are a natural consequence of military action that has always stood on shaky legal ground. He said it was clear Hegseth was responsible, even though he did not explicitly order a second attack.

“He may not have been in the room, but he knew about it,” Blumenthal said. “And it was his order that was instrumental in predictably leading to the deaths of these survivors. »