Democrats and even some Republicans said Hegseth’s orders may have been illegal if a report on his commands to kill survivors of a boat attack are true.
Lawmakers from both parties raised alarms Sunday that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth may have committed a war crime following a report that he ordered a follow-on attack to kill survivors of a boat strike in September.
The Washington Post reported last week that Hegseth authorized a highly unusual strike to kill all survivors of one of the Trump administration’s attacks in recent months on boats allegedly carrying drugs in international waters. POLITICO has not independently verified the Post’s reporting.
Sens. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Tim Kaine (D-Va.) — both of whom sit on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee — said Sunday that, if accurate, such orders would rise to the level of war crimes.
“If that reporting is true, it’s a clear violation of the DOD’s own laws of war, as well as international laws about the way you treat people who are in that circumstance. And so this rises to the level of a war crime if it’s true,” Kaine said in an interview with CBS’ Nancy Cordes on “Face the Nation.”
Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) also said in a Sunday morning interview with CNN’s “State of the Union” that the order, if true, is “clearly not lawful.”
And Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) responded to the article by writing on social media Saturday evening: “Pete Hegseth is a war criminal and should be fired immediately.”
The Pentagon declined to comment beyond a Friday social media post in which Hegseth branded the Post’s article as “fabricated, inflammatory, and derogatory reporting,” insisting: “Our current operations in the Caribbean are lawful under both U.S. and international law.” Hegseth did not dispute that he gave the orders detailed in the article.
While skeptical to concede that the Washington Post’s reporting may be accurate, Republicans also raised concern that Hegseth’s orders could have been illegal if they played out as reported.
Bipartisan leadership of the Armed Services Committees in both chambers vowed to probe the matter, with Sens. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and Jack Reed (D-R.I.) promising “vigorous oversight to determine the facts related to these circumstances” on Friday.
Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio) told Cordes on Sunday that “if that occurred, that would be very serious, and I agree that would be an illegal act,” and Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) said on ABC’s “This Week” that “if it was as if the article said, that is a violation of the law of war.”
“I don’t think he would be foolish enough to make this decision to say, kill everybody, kill the survivors, because that’s a clear violation of the law of war,” Bacon, who sits on the House Armed Services Committee, told ABC’s Jonathan Karl. “So I’m very suspicious that he would’ve done something like that, because it would go against common sense.”
The oversight comes as Trump has sparred with Congressional Democrats over a video reminding service members of their obligation to defy illegal military orders. Trump called for the six lawmakers featured in that video to face arrest and trial for what he called “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!,” sparking outrage from Democrats.
The White House has since insisted that Trump did not call for the lawmakers to be executed, despite Trump re-posting a since-deleted social media post that advocated for hanging the Democrats.