President Donald Trump salutes as he attends a military parade commemorating the Army”s 250th anniversary, coinciding with his 79th birthday, Saturday, June 14, 2025, in Washington, as Secretary of the Army Daniel Driscoll, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and first lady Melania Trump, watch. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson).
On Tuesday, the ACLU initiated a federal lawsuit, pressing the Department of Justice to release a confidential Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) memo. This memo allegedly provided the Trump administration with legal grounds for conducting “lethal” boat strikes in international waters against individuals labeled as “narcoterrorists” suspected of drug smuggling.
The memo, which has been publicly acknowledged by the White House and the Department of Defense and is accessible to certain members of Congress, is a document the ACLU argues the public has a right to see. According to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, the memo purportedly explains how the Trump administration justified these killings as lawful and the basis on which it claimed immunity from prosecution for those involved in the operations.
The lawsuit emphasizes the importance of disclosing these records to facilitate informed public discussion regarding the U.S. military’s unprecedented strikes. These actions, which have resulted in the deaths of over eighty civilians since September, are said to contravene both domestic and international law. The suit also highlights the necessity of disclosure due to reports that the OLC Opinion may offer immunity to those who authorized or participated in these actions from future legal repercussions.
The ACLU points out a “broad consensus” among experts in military law, suggesting these strikes are unlawful. They refer to the opinions of John Yoo, a law professor known for authoring “torture memos,” and Senator Rand Paul, R-Ky. Both support the argument for public access to the memo, particularly given its public mention by the White House and the Department of Defense, which strengthens the case for its transparency and any unclassified summaries.
The complaint details that since September 2, 2025, President Trump has ordered 22 lethal military strikes targeting civilian boats in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific Ocean, which the U.S. government alleged were trafficking drugs, resulting in 87 fatalities. The ACLU asserts that the U.S. military should not engage in the summary execution of civilians merely suspected of drug smuggling. Instead, non-lethal measures such as arrest should be prioritized, with lethal force being a last resort to avert an immediate and specific threat of death or serious injury.
A senator informed the Washington Post that the memo’s language is “broad enough to authorize just about anything” regarding the “use of force anywhere in the world.” This breadth of legal justification for immunity necessitates public examination, the lawsuit contends.
In a statement, ACLU National Security Project attorney Jeffrey Stein referred to immunity as “get-out-of-jail-free cards” for “cold-blooded murder of civilians.”
“The Trump administration must stop these illegal and immoral strikes, and officials who have carried them out must be held accountable,” Stein said.
The suit comes as Congress demands videos of a second Sept. 2 strike widely denounced as “dishonorable,” killing survivors on a boat the U.S. hit, and as Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and President Donald Trump waffle or reverse course on the subject.
