Two weeks ago, the military commander overseeing President Trump’s bombings of boats in the Caribbean Sea abruptly resigned. Admiral Alvin Holsey, the head of U.S. Southern Command, offered no explanation for the move. Neither did the Defense Department. He was less than one year into the job, making the departure even more inexplicable.
Since then, we’ve heard nothing about why Holsey stepped down. Yet in those two weeks, Trump’s campaign has only gotten more brazen and horrifically lawless. He ordered the bombing of four more boats this week, killing 14 more people, for a total of around 60 killed, even as the administration still refuses to share key intelligence or elaborate on its supposed legal rationale.
Now this saga has taken another unnerving turn. Representative Adam Smith—the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee—tells me that Republicans on the committee are declining to press for Holsey’s testimony despite Democratic entreaties for it. This, even though Holsey plausibly resigned over discomfort with the bombing, meaning he could have key information about it that Congress should want to know.
“I think we really need to hear from Holsey on this,” Smith told me.
Smith pointed out that there’s been a big public conversation about what military officials should do if they believe they’ve been given “illegal orders.” He noted that conventionally, they will sometimes “quit” their posts to signal this fear to the public.
“Holsey did in fact quit,” Smith said. “So we need to hear: Did he quit because he believed he was being given illegal orders?”
Smith said that Democratic staff communicated to GOP staff that Democrats want the committee—which is chaired by GOP Representative Mike Rogers—to seek Holsey’s testimony in a classified setting. GOP staff then asked the Pentagon for this testimony. “The Pentagon said no, and that was the end of it,” Smith said.
That’s deeply worrisome and should make lawmakers more determined to secure his testimony. But Republicans on the committee apparently are not pressing for it, even though lawmakers have the power to make it very clear that they want such testimony or even to compel it.
Smith allowed that military officials deserve some deference if they don’t want to testify—but said this isn’t a good reason to decline to press the point. In fact, given the circumstances, getting that testimony is plainly lawmakers’ responsibility to the country—at an absolute minimum.
“I think we’re in extraordinary times here,” Smith said. “So some of those normal rules should not apply anymore.”
Extraordinary times, indeed. This week, administration officials did brief senators on the bombings, which have now targeted 14 vessels, all under murky circumstances. But Democrats say this briefing was for GOP senators only, which may violate the legal requirement for bipartisan briefings. While the House Armed Services Committee did get a bipartisan briefing Thursday, Democrats told reporters that Pentagon lawyers scheduled to participate didn’t come and it was run only by a senior military officer who failed to answer their legal questions.
The administration has designated drug cartels as terrorist organizations while claiming Trump has inherent constitutional authority to order the strikes to defend the country against attacks. But as legal experts note, this gives Trump the power to unilaterally execute civilians who are not in any meaningful sense akin to terrorist groups or waging war against the United States, with zero due process. Meanwhile, lots of evidence casts doubt on whether some of these people were even trafficking drugs to the United States in the first place.
Smith said the official legal rationale—offered in this week’s Armed Services Committee briefing—has gotten even more troubling. He said administration officials claimed they now have the authority to bomb people who are merely “affiliated” with groups that Trump has designated as “narco-terrorists.” But under questioning, they refused to say what “affiliated” even means.
“They did not in any way, shape, manner, or form explain what the ceiling and floor are for ‘affiliated,’” Smith told me. “Theoretically, that could go beyond whether they’re in the actual action of moving drugs.”
On top of that, several people have survived the bombings, and they have all reportedly been repatriated to their home countries, rather than held as enemy combatants. So does this mean the administration lacks sufficient evidence to hold the people it is summarily executing?
This disconnect came up at the Armed Services briefing, and Trump officials didn’t give a satisfactory answer, Smith notes. “I said, ‘So what you’re telling us is you need less evidence to kill somebody than you do to hold them,’” Smith says. “They did not really address my point.”
In this context, the failure to bring in Holsey for questioning is truly derelict. As Bill Kristol notes at The Bulwark, Trump’s autocratic takeover depends heavily on “complicity, collaboration, and cowardice on the part of congressional Republicans.” The GOP failure to exercise sufficient oversight on Trump’s bombings is allowing his consolidation of authoritarian power to balloon exponentially and dangerously.
Let’s be clear: If Republicans fail to secure Holsey’s testimony, they will be denying themselves, along with the rest of the country, information that is vital to understanding one of Trump’s most lawless usurpations by far. Indeed, with Trump possibly ramping up for broader military action against Venezuela (he just denied this, but that contradicts previous statements), failure to conduct sufficient oversight will arguably betray the military too.
That’s because military officials may be getting directed to execute potentially illegal actions. Given this, how can we not hear from a top official who may have already concluded they’re being asked to carry out the unacceptable?
“It appears the U.S. president is asserting a license to kill and may be taking the country to war in Venezuela,” Brian Finucane, a former senior State Department lawyer, told me. “At the same time, we have the SouthCom Commander stepping down. He has not publicly explained his reasons.”
“Alarm bells should be sounding on Capitol Hill,” Finucane said.
There’s still time. Smith tells me he’ll renew his demand for Holsey’s testimony once Congress reconvenes after the government shutdown. Republicans should be pressed to seek this, and if they refuse, they should be mercilessly hounded until they agree to do their jobs. The country may be going to war. They can’t be allowed to get away with anything less.
