The Trump Administration Sidestepped Skeptical Lawyers Across National Security Agencies As It Pursued A Military Campaign Against Alleged Narcotraffickers, Officials Say.
Donald Trump and his top White House aides pushed for lethal strikes on Western Hemisphere drug traffickers almost as soon as they took office in January, and in the past 10 months have repeatedly steamrolled or sidestepped government lawyers who questioned whether the provocative policy was legal, according to multiple current and former officials familiar with the debates.
As Trump weighs what could be imminent military action against Venezuela and its leader, Nicolás Maduro, while striking at alleged drug boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean, new details are emerging about the evolution of a strategy that involves unprecedented American military force against the narcotics trade — and, critics say, outsize legal risk.
But early on, according to two people familiar with the matter, the administration proposed having the CIA use its unique covert authorities to conduct the lethal strikes on drug traffickers that Trump and Stephen Miller, his powerful homeland security adviser, wanted.
The spy agency, under Director John Ratcliffe, was rapidly ramping up its counternarcotics arm, consciously modeling the effort to mirror the post-9/11 American regime’s war against “terrorists.”
White House officials initiated proposals that envisioned the CIA taking the lead, and work began on drafting a presidential authorization for covert action, known as a “finding.”
Lawyers at the spy agency and elsewhere in the government were skeptical. Was killing civilian drug traffickers defensible under domestic law, they asked, if the cartels do not actually seek to attack Americans, even if the product they smuggle might lead to deaths in the United States? Was it legal to kill drug traffickers, many of them apparently low-level, without knowing their identities?
“There is no actual threat justifying self defense — there are not organized armed groups seeking to kill Americans,” said one person familiar with the legal debate, who like others interviewed spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid retribution and because of the matter’s sensitivity.
Though the hand behind covert actions is supposed to be hidden, Miller and his team wanted to publicize any strikes on what Trump has deemed “narcoterrorists,” including through videos of drug labs or boats being blown up, one person familiar with the matter said.
Amid pushback on CIA action from lawyers in the late spring, the administration forged ahead with an alternative plan that was already under discussion: to use the military. And it came up with a legal justification that national security law experts inside and out of government have said does not stand up to facts: that the country was in a “non-international” armed conflict with “designated terrorist organizations.”
This account of the evolution of the Trump administration’s lethal counter-drug strategy is based on interviews with almost 20 current and former officials and other people familiar with aspects of the discussions.
“President Trump is prepared to use every element of American power to stop drugs from flooding in to our country and to bring those responsible to justice,” a senior administration official said in an email in response to questions, noting that operations have been given careful legal scrutiny and were deemed lawful.
By midsummer, the administration was considering boat strikes and a second set of Venezuela-focused options, which included the seizure of oil fields and a “snatch and grab” of Maduro, said one former official.
“President Trump has been clear in his message to Maduro: Stop sending drugs and criminals to our country,” said the senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity.
Hidden History -- In The Making 