MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
The Trump administration has acknowledged killing more than 30 people in the last two months as it destroyed boats in the Caribbean it says were carrying drugs. Now Congressman Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, is calling for a hearing to examine this use of military force. Congressman Smith represents the 9th District in Washington State. He's on the line with us this morning. Good morning, Congressman. Thanks for joining us.
ADAM SMITH: Good morning. Thanks for having me on.
MARTIN: So what are some of the questions you have for the Trump administration?
SMITH: Well, there's been a complete lack of transparency. I mean, there's several layers to the problem, but No. 1 is just a clear explanation of who's being killed, why and what the strategy is. And, you know, the Trump administration has basically said that drug traffickers leave us alone, and this is highly unusual. I mean, obviously, ever since 9/11, we've had the U.S. military involved in going after various terrorist organizations. But the Armed Services Committee and the intel committees had always been very well-informed about that. We knew who the people were who were being targeted. We knew why, and we knew how they were connected to a larger picture of al-Qaida or ISIS. Here, Trump basically says, they're drug dealers. We blew them up. End of story. So you've got that problem - lack of transparency.
Second, the explanations that have been offered by the administration have varied. You know, sometimes they talk about them being, you know, narcoterrorists. Other times, they talk about how they're connected to governments in Venezuela and Colombia that they don't like. So is this regime change, or is this an effort at stopping drug trafficking? And then we've heard these explanations - you know, oh, gosh, we've got to stop fentanyl. You know, fentanyl's the issue. Fentanyl doesn't come out of Venezuela, OK? This is cocaine and marijuana. So there is no clear explanation, and we are talking about the U.S. government making the decision to kill somebody without an adequate explanation. That's a major problem legally, morally and in terms of what the U.S. ought to be doing in the world.
MARTIN: So you're asking for House Republicans to return to the Capitol in order to hold this hearing. I do think most people understand that Republicans control both Houses of Congress, as well as the White House, so they are the ones who sort of determine the committee calendar. So the first question is, have you spoken with the committee chair, Mike Rogers? Is this something that he is interested in also? And second, is there any indication that the speaker would agree to bring people back to hold this hearing?
SMITH: Yeah. I've not spoken to Mike directly. Our staffs have communicated. I'm going to see him today. I know there are Republicans who are concerned about this, along the same lines that I have been. I have not yet received any assurances that they are interested in coming back and holding the hearing. And I also want your listeners to fully understand just how unprecedented it is for Congress to not be in session during a government shutdown. We have been through a number of shutdowns. Congress, the House, has always been in session, precisely because, gosh, we got to talk. We got to figure out how to get the government open. So to actually have completely shut down the United States House of Representatives is a dangerous step, in my mind. We're supposed to be working on a wide variety of issues.
MARTIN: Outside of a hearing, do the Democrats have any recourse to seek answers on the legality of these attacks?
SMITH: I mean, the recourse - two steps. One, we can ask, as we have a number of people at the Pentagon. But do remember that President Trump, you know, fired, you know, all of the inspector generals, then fired a whole bunch of the judge advocate generals, who are the lawyers for the Department of Defense, who are supposed to give advice when they say, hey, can we hit this boat? The lawyers go, OK, well, here's why you can or why you can't. A lot of those people have been fired. The ones that are there, the focus is on loyalty to Trump, not on loyalty to the law or the ethics of the situation. So that also undermines the ability to get to those right answers. And then lastly, as we spoke about a little bit, Admiral Holsey, who is the Southern Command Commander, who is the one who ultimately has the authority to make the decision directly in theater, resigned.
MARTIN: Yeah. Yeah. What do you know about that? As you also mentioned, the Pentagon said unexpectedly - well, unexpected to us, anyway - that Admiral Holsey was retiring. Head of U.S. Southern Command, as you said, oversees military operations in Latin America. Do you know why he retired?
SMITH: Yeah. I know three things. No. 1, it is highly unusual for a combatant commander to resign one year into what is typically a four-year assignment. It just doesn't happen. Two, there was a lot of controversy swirling around the legality of these strikes. Many, many people, including myself, feel they are illegal, so it is an illegal order. And three, there are a number of rumors, not that I have been able to track down specifically and directly, that Admiral Holsey was concerned about the legality of the strikes and that that conflict had a lot to do with why, ultimately, he was either forced out or decided to resign.
MARTIN: So before we let you go, we only have 30 seconds left. Assuming that there is no hearing called by the broader committee, do you have any recourse to ask Admiral Holsey why he retired?
SMITH: We - again, we can ask. We don't necessarily get an answer to that. The other thing is, the Republicans could actually do their job. They could actually recognize that Congress exists, and we could vote to do this. And last point. This is really about power for Donald Trump as much as it is about drug policy.
MARTIN: That's Representative Adam Smith. He's a Democrat from Washington State. Representative Smith, thank you so much for joining us.
SMITH: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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