{"id":319397,"date":"2025-12-03T08:38:04","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T08:38:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=319397"},"modified":"2025-12-04T07:43:01","modified_gmt":"2025-12-04T07:43:01","slug":"trump-administration-is-selling-out-admiral-to-shield-hegseth-over-boat-strikes-officials-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=319397","title":{"rendered":"Trump administration is \u2018selling out\u2019 admiral to shield Hegseth over boat strikes, officials say"},"content":{"rendered":"

Joseph Gedeon \u2013 The Guardian Dec 2, 2025<\/strong><\/h1>\n

The Pentagon on Tuesday scapegoated a navy admiral for the extrajudicial double-tap strike that killed survivors of a 2 September attack on an alleged drug boat and vowed to continue operations, even as lawmakers investigate whether the attack constituted a war crime.<\/p>\n

At a Pentagon briefing on Tuesday, Kingsley Wilson, the Pentagon press secretary said that the decision to re-strike the \u201cnarco terrorist vessel\u201d was made by Adm Frank M Bradley, \u201coperating under clear and long standing authorities to ensure the boat was destroyed and the threat to the United States was eliminated\u201d. Wilson added that Pete Hegseth<\/a>, the Pentagon secretary, \u201cstands behind Admiral Bradley, 100%\u201d.<\/p>\n

Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, on Monday explicitly named Bradley as the officer who \u201cdirected the engagement\u201d, distancing Hegseth from accountability despite a Washington Post report that he ordered the deaths of everyone on the boat.<\/p>\n

Wilson dismissed critical reporting of the incident as \u201cfake news\u201d.<\/p>\n

During a cabinet meeting alongside Donald Trump on Tuesday, Hegseth said: \u201cWe\u2019ve only just begun striking narco boats and putting narco terrorists at the bottom of the ocean.\u201d He defended Bradley, who is set to provide a classified briefing to lawmakers overseeing the military on Thursday, saying Trump \u201calways has our back\u201d and that \u201cwe always have the back of our commanders who are making decisions in difficult situations\u201d.<\/p>\n

Later in the meeting, Hegseth cited the \u201cfog of war\u201d in defending the follow-up strike on the boat on 2 September. He said he did not see any survivors in the water, saying the vessel \u201cexploded in fire, smoke, you can\u2019t see anything \u2026 This is called the fog of war.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Pentagon said 21 strikes had been conducted against drug boats, killing 82 people whom the administration describes as \u201cnarco terrorists\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cSecretary Hegseth authorised Adm Bradley to conduct these kinetic strikes,\u201d Leavitt said, adding: \u201cAdm Bradley worked well within his authority and the law, directing the engagement to ensure the boat was destroyed and the threat to the United States of America was eliminated.\u201d<\/p>\n

The White House statement came after Trump said on Sunday he \u201cwouldn\u2019t have wanted that \u2013 not a second strike\u201d when asked about the incident, and claimed Hegseth told him \u201che did not order the death of those two men\u201d. The president added: \u201cAnd I believe him.\u201d<\/p>\n

The administration\u2019s apparent effort to distance Hegseth from the operation has not flown under the radar for some elected officials.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is selling out Admiral Bradley and sending chills down the spines of his chain of command, who now know their boss will sell them out if he is taking heat,\u201d said Chris Murphy, a Democratic senator. \u201cA case study in how not to lead.\u201d<\/p>\n

The White House\u2019s legal justification for the strikes, outlined in a classified justice department office of legal counsel opinion reviewed by the Guardian<\/a>, treats the operations as targeting cocaine rather than people \u2013 meaning anyone killed on board should be considered an enemy casualty or collateral damage rather than a murder victim.<\/p>\n

The reasoning differs sharply from Trump\u2019s public narrative that the strikes are an effort to stop overdose deaths, rather than attacks on a commodity that finances warfare.<\/p>\n

Bipartisan scrutiny has mounted over a report that Hegseth issued a verbal order<\/a> in September to strike the vessel, and according to the Washington Post, to \u201ckill everybody\u201d.<\/p>\n

Democrats have said the allegations, first reported last week by the Washington Post<\/a>, could amount to a war crime, and Republicans have also voiced their concerns about the legality of the attack on 2 September.<\/p>\n

The House and Senate armed services committees have opened investigations into the recent US military<\/a> strikes on vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean.<\/p>\n

In her comments to reporters on Monday, Leavitt did not dispute the Washington Post report that there were survivors after the initial strike.<\/p>\n

Hegseth posted late on Monday, simultaneously praising the admiral and pointing responsibility in his direction: \u201cAdm Mitch Bradley is an American hero, a true professional, and has my 100% support. I stand by him and the combat decisions he has made \u2013 on the September 2 mission and all others since.\u201d<\/p>\n

A month after the strike, Bradley was promoted from commander of Joint Special Operations Command to commander of US Special Operations Command.<\/p>\n

Concern over the Trump administration\u2019s military strikes against the alleged drug-smuggling boats has been building in Congress, but details of this follow-on strike stunned many lawmakers from both parties and generated stark questions about the legality of the attacks and the overall strategy in the region, particularly toward the Venezuelan president, Nicol\u00e1s Maduro.<\/p>\n

The lawmakers said they did not know whether last week\u2019s Washington Post report was true, and some Republicans were sceptical. Still, they said the reported attacking of survivors of an initial missile strike posed serious concerns and merited further scrutiny.<\/p>\n

Leavitt said Hegseth had spoken with members of Congress who may have expressed some concerns about the reports over the weekend.<\/p>\n

Gen Dan Caine, the chair of the joint chiefs of staff, also spoke over the weekend with the two Republican and two Democratic lawmakers leading the Senate and House armed services committees. He reiterated \u201chis trust and confidence in the experienced commanders at every echelon\u201d, Caine\u2019s office said in a statement.<\/p>\n

The statement added that the call focused on \u201caddressing the intent and legality of missions to disrupt illicit trafficking networks which threaten the security and stability of the western hemisphere\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Senate majority leader, John Thune, on Monday broadly defended the operations, echoing the Trump administration position that they were necessary to stem the flow of illegal narcotics into the US.<\/p>\n

Thune said the committees in Congress would look into what happened. \u201cI don\u2019t think you want to draw any conclusions or deductions until you have all the facts,\u201d he said of the 2 September strike. \u201cWe\u2019ll see where they lead.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the Post\u2019s report, Hegseth said on Friday on X that \u201cfake news is delivering more fabricated, inflammatory, and derogatory reporting to discredit our incredible warriors fighting to protect the homeland\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur current operations in the Caribbean are lawful under both US and international law, with all actions in compliance with the law of armed conflict \u2013 and approved by the best military and civilian lawyers, up and down the chain of command,\u201d Hegseth wrote.<\/p>\n

The Senate Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, called Hegseth a \u201cnational embarrassment\u201d over his response to critics. Schumer demanded that Hegseth release the video of the strike and testify under oath about what happened.<\/p>\n

The Republican senator for Mississippi Roger Wicker, the chair of the Senate armed services committee, pledged that his panel\u2019s investigation would be \u201cdone by the numbers\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll find out the ground truth,\u201d he said, adding that the ramifications of the report were \u201cserious charges\u201d.<\/p>\n

The 2 September strike was one in a series carried out by the US military in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean as Trump has ordered the buildup of a fleet of warships near Venezuela<\/a>, including the largest US aircraft carrier. More than 80 people were killed in the strikes.<\/p>\n

Chaos has surrounded Hegseth, who has renamed himself the \u201cwar secretary\u201d, in his first year on the job. He was outed for sharing sensitive military information about incoming strikes in Yemen on the messaging app Signal, suffered internal feuding among his senior staff, and has encouraged a paranoia-driven hunt for leakers, which have led to multiple top aides being fired.<\/p>\n

A former Pentagon spokesman, John Ullyot \u2013 who had been a Trump loyalist \u2013 wrote in April that the department was experiencing \u201ctotal chaos\u201d and \u201cfull-blown meltdown\u201d, suggesting Trump should consider removing Hegseth.<\/p>\n

Trump has repeatedly defended Hegseth, saying this week that he is \u201cdoing a great job\u201d.<\/p>\n

Source\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

White House names officer who \u2018directed the engagement\u2019, distancing Hegseth from accountability after he instructed U.S. forces involved to “kill everybody”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":319401,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[58,41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-319397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-Current_Affairs","category-Inside_the_White_House_and_Washingtons_Beltway"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=319397"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319397\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":319400,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319397\/revisions\/319400"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/319401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=319397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=319397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=319397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}