Pentagon Reportedly Sought To Work Out Legal Authority To Justify Attack On Venezuelan Vessel After The Strike

Defense Department officials privately expressed concern about the Trump administration's shifting narratives on the attack against a Venezuelan vessel that killed 11, according to a new report.

Concretely, the New York Times detailed that Pentagon officials were still working out the legal explanation to justify the attack against the boat that took place on Tuesday.

The outlet noted that Congress has not authorized an armed conflict against gangs or Venezuela, and quoted legal experts saying they don't know about precedents for claiming that a country could invoke self-defense as basis to target alleged cartel members with lethal force.

It added that even though the groups have indeed been designated as terrorist organizations, the decision does not authorize the administration to conduct strikes against them.

"The previous designation of Tren de Aragua as a 'foreign terrorist organization' does not itself provide the authority for using military force," said Brian Finucane, a former State Department lawyer, when speaking to the outlet. He was making reference to the fact that in 2001 Congress authorized the use of military force against Al Qaeda and Taliban hosts in Afghanistan.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio and President Donald Trump have repeatedly supported the decision, with the former anticipating "it will happen again."

Trump is "going to use the full power of America and the full might of the us to take on and eradicate these drug cartels no matter where they're operating from and no matter how long they've been able to act with impunity," Rubio said.

At the Oval Office on Wednesday, Trump was asked why the boat in question and the 11 people on it were killed instead of taken into custody.

"On the boat you have massive amounts of drugs. We have tapes of them speaking about it. There are massive amounts of drug coming into our country to kill a lot of people. You see bags of drugs all over the boat. A lot of other people won't be doing it again after seeing that video," Trump said.

"We have to protect our country and we're going to. Venezuela has been a very bad actor. They've been sending millions of people into the country. Many of them are Tren de Aragua, some of the worst people anywhere in the world," he added.