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OAN Staff Katherine Mosack
3:45 PM – Saturday, November 29, 2025
In a classified memo, the Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) advised the Pentagon that strikes on suspected drug trafficking boats are legal under both U.S. and international law.
The 50-page document was sent out this summer, The Washington Post reported Saturday, citing four sources familiar with the matter. This was shortly before the Trump administration started carrying out deadly strikes on alleged drug traffickers in the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean.
The U.S. military has completed 19 strikes since September.
The opinion also clarified that military personnel would not be exposed to prosecution in the future for their involvement in the strikes.
The document argues that the U.S. is engaged in a “non-international armed conflict” under the president’s Article II authorities, which would allow the attacks under domestic law. President Donald Trump echoed this idea in a memo to Congress in October.
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It also states that drug cartels sell drugs in order to finance violence and extortion, thus fitting the military strikes into the law-of-war framework.
“The strikes were ordered consistent with the laws of armed conflict, and as such are lawful orders,” a Justice Department Spokesperson said. “Military personnel are legally obligated to follow lawful orders and, as such, are not subject to prosecution for following lawful orders.”
“Current operations in the Caribbean are lawful under both U.S. and international law,” Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell told The Washington Post on Wednesday. He added that all actions are in “complete compliance with the law of armed conflict.”
“Lawyers up and down the chain of command have been thoroughly involved in reviewing these operations prior to execution,” he said, noting that legal personnel have had “the opportunity to disagree.”
The Trump administration’s campaign against “narcoterrorists” is believed to have resulted in over 70 deaths, souring an already fragile relationship with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. The military under Trump has continued its mission regardless of Maduro’s protests, with Trump saying this week that he intends to start taking action on land and also warning airlines against flying through Venezuelan airspace.
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