House Armed Services Chairman Prepared To End Investigation After Viewing Double-Tap Boat Strike
Congress this week has been threatening to withhold travel funds for Pentagon leadership as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has refused to turn over videos of strikes against suspected drug-smuggling boats off the coast of Latin America, amid the ongoing debate over their 'legality' of the actions.
The demand, which would significantly reduce Hegseth's own travel budget, has been quietly tucked into the final draft of the annual defense policy bill. Congressional leaders called for "unedited video of strikes conducted against designated terrorist organizations in the area of responsibility of the United States Southern Command" to the House and Senate Armed Services Committees.
Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, has expressed new frustration on Wednesday over Hegseth's refusal to release a Sept. 2 video which shows strikes on men who survived the first round of a drone attack.
"I’m going to stay hopeful for a couple more days. But the idea that he’s going to try to simply drag this out until Congress breaks for the holidays is outrageous, and folks ought to be pretty damn pissed off," said Warner.
Hegseth earlier said the request to release the video is still under review, and that his office is mulling it. While top national security officials have seen it, Warner said further that "There were other members of the administration in that briefing who understood that Congress has an oversight responsibility to see this video."
The so-called Gang of Eight were allowed to view it in a closed session. These are the eight leaders within Congress who are briefed on classified intelligence matters.
However, there are signs that Congressional leaders could back down, as CNN newly reports on Wednesday:
House Armed Services Chairman Mike Rogers is prepared to end his panel’s investigation into the September double-tap strike on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean, a committee aide tells CNN.
Rogers received a classified briefing last week to view the video footage and is now pushing for the rest of his panel to be able to see the video.
The committee aide said, "The video and classified briefings from the Pentagon were sufficient to convince him this was a legal action. But he’s also been clear that we need a classified briefing where the rest of HASC’s members can see the video, and we expect that to happen next week."
Some lawmakers have disagreed, calling it an appalling act and war crime, while others said the video showed the survivors trying to salvage the drugs...
Lawmakers were shocked and appalled Thursday after they were shown video footage of the September 2 double tap that killed two survivors of an airstrike in the Caribbean. https://t.co/tNPk6tioJ5 pic.twitter.com/LgWC183iJe
— The New Republic (@newrepublic) December 4, 2025
Some conservatives have decried the whole saga as but a carefully orchestrated plan of character assassination campaign targeting Hegseth.
But Trump has been sticking by him. The last word Hegseth gave on releasing the video was as follows: "We've got operators out there doing this right now, so whatever we were to decide to release, we would have to be very responsible about, so we're reviewing that right now."