The White House has confirmed that the admiral overseeing U.S. military operations against alleged drug-carrying boats had issued the order for a second strike that killed two survivors, an attack that has intensified legal scrutiny into the Trump administration’s lethal campaign.
Following new reporting about the September 2 strike and allegations that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth commanded military personnel to “kill everybody” on board the vessels, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed that Admiral Frank M. “Mitch” Bradley had issued the order to fire on the vessel in the Caribbean a second time.
At the time of the attack, Bradley led the Joint Special Operations Command, which operates under the U.S. Special Operations Command and typically is responsible for performing classified military operations. He was later promoted to lead the parent organization.
Asked to clarify whether Hegseth had ordered the second strike on the boat, Leavitt told reporters that Bradley — not Hegseth — gave the order and stressed that the veteran naval officer was “well within his authority and the law” when he did.
“He directed the engagement to ensure the boat was destroyed and the threat from narco terrorists was eliminated,” she said.
Leavitt added that the strikes were “conducted in international waters and in accordance with the law of armed conflict.”
The strike on September 2, the first among more than a dozen attacks that have killed more than 80 people in recent months, “was conducted in self defense to protect Americans” and “vital United States interests,” she said.
When two survivors emerged from the wreckage, Bradley issued an order to comply with Hegseth’s alleged instructions to “kill everybody,” according to The Washington Post, citing officials with direct knowledge of the operation.
The two men were then “blown apart in the water,” according to the report.
News of Hegseth’s alleged command follows growing questions about Trump administration’s deadly campaign and allegations that the attacks amount to illegal extrajudicial killings, which law-of-war experts speaking to The Independent have labeled outright murders and war crimes.
According to the Pentagon’s own Law of War Manual, people who are “wounded, sick, or shipwrecked” on the high seas are supposed to be “respected and protected in all circumstances” by U.S. forces, even during hostilities.
The Defense Department’s manual specifically states that “making them the object of attack is strictly prohibited.”
But when pressed on how her claim that the strikes on the survivors were “in accordance with the law of armed conflict” when the Pentagon’s own guidance explicitly says otherwise, Leavitt declined to offer an explanation and instead repeated her early prepared statement.
One day earlier, Donald Trump told reporters that Hegseth told him “he did not order the death of those two men.”
“I wouldn't have wanted that — not a second strike,” the president told reporters Sunday. “The first strike was very lethal.”
Leavitt also defended Trump’s pardon of Juan Orlando Hernández, the former president of Honduras who was convicted in U.S. court last year of leading a drug trafficking conspiracy that enriched cartels — allegations at the center of the president’s current military pressure campaign against Venezuela.
“The people of Honduras have highlighted to [Trump] how the former President Hernandez was set up,” Leavitt said.
She repeated claims from Hernández’s legal team that his case was “over-prosecution” and “lawfare” under Joe Biden’s administration.
“He’s of course within his constitutional authority to sign clemency for whoever he deems worthy of that,” she said.
Democratic and Republican members of both the Senate Armed Services Committee and the House Armed Services Committee are pledging “vigorous oversight” of the Pentagon in the wake of the news as members of Congress join growing calls for investigations into alleged criminal acts.
Over the weekend, Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke by phone with the Republican and Democratic leaders on the House and Senate armed services committee following reports of Hegseth’s alleged command.
They discussed “the intent and legality of missions to disrupt illicit trafficking networks which threaten the security and stability of the Western Hemisphere,” according to a readout of the call.
Leavitt‘s confirmation of the second strike on the alleged drug trafficking boat marked an abrupt reversal of the administration's position from days earlier, when White House Communications Director Steven Cheung responded to the Post story by accusing the newspaper of having fabricated their report, writing on X that the Post had “literally just printed what some unnamed random person said and reported it as fact.”
The Pentagon initially declined to comment on Hegseth’s alleged command, though Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell later hit back in his own X post by claiming that the story’s “entire narrative was false.”
“These people just fabricate anonymously sourced stories out of whole cloth,” he added.
Hegseth later issued a lengthy statement on X defending the campaign without denying whether he ordered officials to “kill everybody” on the boats despite not posing any immediate threat to the United States.
“As usual, the fake news is delivering more fabricated, inflammatory, and derogatory reporting to discredit our incredible warriors fighting to protect the homeland,” he wrote Friday. “Our current operations in the Caribbean are lawful under both U.S. and international law, with all actions in compliance with the law of armed conflict — and approved by the best military and civilian lawyers, up and down the chain of command.”
Just days later, Trump himself confirmed what his top defense adviser had denied while speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One.
