Maine’s congressional delegation, including Republican Sen. Susan Collins, said Monday they support investigations after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth allegedly ordered a second strike to kill survivors on a suspected drug-smuggling boat in the Caribbean Sea.
The Washington Post first reported Friday on the details from the Sept. 2 attack that marked the first of the more than 20 strikes that President Donald Trump’s administration has launched on vessels it said were carrying drugs from Venezuela. U.S. intelligence analysts believed the 11 people aboard the boat in early September were ferrying drugs, and the second strike came to comply with Hegseth reportedly giving a verbal order to “kill everybody,” per reports.
The White House confirmed Monday that Hegseth ordered a second strike and said it was justified. The Trump administration notably rescued and detained two survivors from an October strike on another suspected drug vessel in the Caribbean Sea.
Both Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate said over the weekend they are planning to hold oversight hearings to help determine if Hegseth and others violated the law. U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, the lone Republican in Maine’s congressional delegation, said in a statement Monday she supports the efforts to “determine the facts related to these strikes.”
“Secretary Hegseth’s alleged actions warrant vigorous oversight,” Collins said.
The Maine senator was one of two Republicans to vote against Hegseth’s confirmation in January. She also cast a decisive vote last month against Democratic-backed legislation to essentially prevent a U.S. attack on Venezuelan soil without congressional authorization. Republicans who lead Congress have generally given Trump leeway in his military buildup and drug trafficking-focused pressure campaign against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
U.S. Sen. Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats and who serves on the Senate’s intelligence and armed services committees, said Monday morning on CNN if it is confirmed there was a second strike specifically to kill the survivors, then “that’s a stone-cold war crime” and “murder.”
The Defense Department’s Law of War Manual says orders to fire upon shipwrecked survivors are “clearly illegal” and that servicemembers are obligated to refuse them. The commander overseeing the Sept. 2 attack, Adm. Frank M. Bradley, ordered at Hegseth’s request the second strike that killed two survivors clinging to the smoldering boat and said on a secure conference call the survivors were legitimate targets because they could theoretically call other drug traffickers to retrieve them and their cargo, the Post reported.
Legal experts have warned the boat strikes that have killed more than 80 people since September may be illegal, while Trump’s administration argued in a classified memo they are a self-defense move in an “armed conflict” with cartels.
“We’re going to be talking to people…all the way up to the top of the chain of command and down to the people that actually triggered that attack,” King said, adding the Uniform Code of Military Justice and military leaders would dictate potential consequences.
U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, a 1st District Democrat, has been calling for Hegseth’s resignation since the spring, when reporting revealed how Hegseth and other Trump administration officials texted war plans for strikes in Yemen in a Signal group chat that had a journalist in it.
Pingree said in a Monday statement that members of Congress have repeatedly requested briefings on strikes in the Caribbean Sea but received “no evidence that justifies these strikes or the administration’s broader campaign off the coast of Venezuela.”
“If Secretary Hegseth truly issued a verbal order to ‘kill everybody’ aboard a disabled vessel, that is a grave violation of U.S. and international law that rises to the level of a war crime,” Pingree said.
U.S. Rep. Jared Golden, a Democrat from Maine’s 2nd District who announced last month that he would not run for reelection in 2026, noted his position on the House Armed Services Committee and said in a Monday statement he is committed to his oversight role.
“The recent reporting on these boat strikes raises serious allegations that warrant an investigation,” Golden said.
