In a scathing critique following a classified briefing, U.S. Senator Chris Murphy has accused the Trump administration of conducting illegal military strikes in the Caribbean with no valid justification, wasting billions in public funds.
Briefing Reveals No Legal Grounds for Attacks
Senator Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat and member of the Foreign Relations Committee, emerged from a classified meeting on Tuesday, December 16, 2025, with a damning conclusion. The briefing featured Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Murphy stated that the administration possesses no legal or national security justification for its series of deadly strikes on alleged drug smuggling boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific. He accused the two Cabinet officials of leaving the session hastily to avoid tough questioning.
"While I obviously can’t tell you any classified information I learned, I can tell you this: that the administration had no legal justification for these strikes and had no national security justification for these strikes," Murphy declared in a video posted on X.
A War on Cocaine Bound for Europe?
Murphy dismantled a key premise used by the administration to justify the operations. He reported that Hegseth and Rubio admitted no fentanyl is coming from Venezuela, contradicting President Donald Trump's previous attempts to link the country to that drug.
While cocaine does flow from the South American nation, Murphy revealed that officials acknowledged nearly all of it is destined for Europe, not the United States.
"So we are spending billions of your taxpayer dollars to wage a war in the Caribbean to stop cocaine from going from Venezuela to Europe," Murphy argued. "That is a massive waste of national security resources and of your taxpayer dollars."
Tense Exchanges and Mounting Scrutiny
The briefing grew heated when Senator Mark Kelly, an Arizona Democrat, confronted Defense Secretary Hegseth over the boat bombings. Kelly accused Hegseth of deflecting when the secretary criticized Kelly for a recent video advising service members to defy "illegal orders."
Murphy also challenged the administration's legal rationale, rejecting the claim that classifying drug cartels as terrorist organizations grants a free hand to attack.
"Only Congress, only the American public, can authorize war," Murphy asserted. "And there is just no question that these are acts of war."
According to The New York Times, there have been roughly 25 administration-ordered strikes against alleged drug boats, resulting in at least 95 deaths. One early September strike remains under intense scrutiny for an extra attack on survivors clinging to a damaged boat, an act many consider a potential war crime. Hegseth has refused to release the full video of that incident, citing its "top secret" classification.
