WASHINGTON — A high-ranking Navy admiral, accused of commanding the U.S. military to target survivors of an assault on a suspected drug vessel, is set to deliver a classified briefing to key congressional figures concerned with national security on Thursday.
Admiral Frank “Mitch” Bradley, who currently leads the U.S. Special Operations Command, will provide crucial insights as lawmakers delve deeper into the congressional investigation concerning Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s management of the military action in international waters near Venezuela. This inquiry is gaining momentum amid suspicions that the offensive may have breached legal protocols.
Following a report by The Washington Post, which claimed Bradley ordered a strike on two survivors in alignment with Hegseth’s command to “eliminate all,” legislators are demanding a comprehensive explanation of the incident. Legal analysts suggest that if the survivors were specifically targeted, it could constitute a criminal act. Representatives from both political parties are calling for transparency and responsibility.
Bradley is expected to address a select group of top congressional leaders, including the Republican and Democratic heads of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees, as well as the Senate Intelligence Committee’s Republican chairman and Democratic vice chairman.
“This matter is of utmost seriousness, concerning the safety of our military personnel and potential legal ramifications for them,” stated Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer during a Wednesday floor speech. “The American public and Congress deserve to know the fundamental facts.”
During the confidential session, lawmakers will press for clarity on critical issues, such as the specific orders given by Hegseth regarding the mission and the rationale behind the subsequent strike.
Democratic lawmakers are also demanding that the Trump administration release the full video of the Sept. 2 attack, as well as written records of the orders and any directives from Hegseth. While Republicans, who control the national security committees, have not publicly called for those documents, they have pledged a thorough review.
“The investigation is going to be done by the numbers,” said Sen. Roger Wicker, the chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee. “We’ll find out the ground truth.”
Pressure builds on Hegseth
President Donald Trump has stood behind Hegseth as he defends his handling of the attack, but pressure is mounting on the defense secretary.
Hegseth has said the aftermath of an initial strike on the boat was clouded in the “fog of war.” He has also said he “didn’t stick around” for the second strike, but said Bradley “made the right call” and “had complete authority” to do it.
Also on Thursday, the Defense Department inspector general was expected to release a partially redacted report into Hegseth’s use of the Signal messaging app in March to share information about a military strike against Yemen’s Houthi militants.
The report found that Hegseth put U.S. personnel and their mission at risk by using Signal, according to two people familiar with the findings. The Pentagon, however, has cast the report as an exoneration of Hegseth.
Who is Adm. Bradley?
At the time of the attack, Bradley was the commander of Joint Special Operations Command, overseeing coordinated operations between the military’s elite special operations units out of Fort Bragg in North Carolina. About a month after the strike, he was promoted to commander of U.S. Special Operations Command.
His military career, spanning over three decades, was mostly spent serving in the elite Navy SEALs and commanding joint operations. He was among the first special forces officers to deploy to Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks. His latest promotion to admiral was approved by unanimous voice vote in the Senate earlier this year, and Democratic and Republican senators praised his record.
“I’m expecting Bradley to tell the truth and shed some light on what actually happened,” said Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, adding that he had “great respect for his record.”
Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican, described Bradley as among those who are “rock solid” and “the most extraordinary people that have ever served in the military.”
But lawmakers like Tillis have also made it clear they expect a reckoning if it is found that survivors were targeted. “Anybody in the chain of command that was responsible for it, that had vision of it, needs to be held accountable,” he said.
What else are lawmakers seeking?
The scope of the investigation is not yet clear, but there is other documentation of the strike that could fill in what happened. But obtaining that information will largely depend on action from Republican lawmakers – a potentially painful prospect for them if it puts them at odds with the president.
Sen. Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Armed Services committee, said he and Wicker have formally requested the executive orders authorizing the operations and the complete videos from the strikes. They are also seeking the intelligence that identified the vessels as legitimate targets, the rules of engagement for the attacks and any criteria used to determine who was a combatant and who was a civilian.
Military officials were aware that there were survivors in the water after the initial strike but carried out the follow-on strike under the rationale that it needed to sink the vessel, according to two people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity. What remains unclear – and what lawmakers hope to clarify in their briefing with Bradley – was who ordered the strikes and whether Hegseth was involved, one of the people said.
Republican lawmakers who are close to Trump have sought to defend Hegseth this week, standing behind the military campaign against drug cartels that the president deems “narco-terrorists.”
“I see nothing wrong with what took place,” said Sen. Markwayne Mullin, an Oklahoma Republican, as he argued that the Trump administration was justified in using war powers against drug cartels.
More than 80 people have been killed in the series of strikes that started in September. And for critics of the campaign like Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., the pressing questions about the legality of killing survivors are a natural outgrowth of military action that was always on shaky legal ground. He said it was clear that Hegseth is responsible, even if he didn’t explicitly order a second attack.
“He may not have been in the room, but he was in the loop,” Blumenthal said. “And it was his order that was instrumental and foreseeably resulted in the deaths of these survivors.”
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