What happened
Defense Department officials on Thursday briefed House members about President Donald Trump’s ongoing military strikes on alleged cocaine smugglers off the coast of South America. But the White House pulled the lawyers scheduled to attend the classified briefing, limiting its utility, Democrats said afterward. Senate Democrats said that they were not invited to a separate intelligence briefing on the attacks held Wednesday for their GOP colleagues, in a breach of longstanding tradition.
Who said what
The Pentagon has acknowledged 14 strikes so far, killing 61 people. But the administration does not know their identities, Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) told reporters after the briefing. “They said that they do not need to positively identify individuals on the vessel to do the strikes,” only “prove a connection” to one of the drug gangs Trump has targeted, even if that connection is “as much as three hops away.”
Most of the questions at the briefing “focused on the legal basis for the strikes,” amid “bipartisan allegations” that Trump’s team is “carrying out extrajudicial killings,” Axios said. But “they didn’t even show up with the lawyers,” said Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.). And when lawmakers asked about the legal justification, “they just said that they can’t answer these questions because the lawyers aren’t here.”
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What next?
Lawmakers pressed the Pentagon briefers for a classified Justice Department memo laying out the legal argument for the strikes, but the officials “would not say when they would turn it over,” The New York Times said. The delay, a U.S. official told the Times, “was because the White House does not want to show members of Congress the memo.” But the pushback from House Republicans “suggests there is some bipartisan momentum for more oversight,” Politico said.
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