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Rubio Dodges Accountability at Senate Hearing as Deadly Boat Strikes Continue.

The Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war, not the president, but this standard has eroded over decades of U.S. imperialism and the “war on drugs.”

The families of two men killed on a small boat targeted by the US military filed a wrongful death lawsuit this week.

 By Mike Ludwig , Truthout, January 29, 2026

As former colleagues fumed about the administration’s failure to consult Congress, Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended President Donald Trump’s rapid escalation of the “war on drugs” in the Caribbean and Latin America before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on January 28. Rubio testified for almost three hours in his first congressional hearing since U.S. forces invaded Venezuela and abducted President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, in a deadly raid on January 3.

“This is the first public hearing we’ve had. Two hundred folks who were on secret designated combatant lists have been killed, U.S. troops have been injured, hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent, an armada amassed, and the announcement of a new Monroe doctrine which does not land well in the Americas,” said Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Virginia), noting operations began nearly five months ago. “Democrats have asked over and over again, can we have a public hearing?”

After months of U.S. military belligerence in international waters without congressional oversight, Rubio claimed the U.S. is not at war with Venezuela but is at war with drug smugglers, which he called “enemy combatants” with advanced weapons.  However, Rubio distanced himself from dozens of airstrikes on small boats that have killed at least 126 people since September, deferring questions to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, despite Rubio’s double role as Trump’s national security advisor. Rubio’s prepared remarks did not mention the boat strikes…………………………………………………………………………….

Rubio’s testimony came one day after the families of two Trinidadian men killed in a U.S. boat strike on October 14 filed a landmark wrongful death lawsuit against the Trump administration in federal court………………………………………..

Echoing many experts, the lawsuit argues there is no legal justification for the boat strikes, videos of which quickly became content for the Trump administration’s social media propaganda. “These are lawless killings in cold blood; killings for sport and killings for theater, which is why we need a court of law to proclaim what is true and constrain what is lawless,” said Baher Azmy, legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, a group representing the Trinidadian families, in a statement on January 27.

“It is absurd and dangerous for any state to just unilaterally proclaim that a ‘war’ exists in order to deploy lethal military force,” Azmy said.

At the Senate hearing, Kaine said the committee was unable to properly discuss the fatal boat strikes because the administration is keeping the intelligence behind them classified and out of public view — including any evidence that the people on the boats were smuggling drugs rather than fishing or traveling from one place to another as the families of Joseph and Samaroo have said.

“I would like to talk about the complete weakness of the legal rationale about striking boats in international waters, but I can’t, because the administration has only shared it with members in a classified setting,” Kaine said. “I can’t tell you the domestic rationale is hollow and the international rationale is hollow.”…………………………………………………………………………………….

As the top official at the State Department, Rubio also appeared to distance himself from the boat strikes and repeatedly deferred questions from members of both parties about the legal justification to the Department of Defense, where Hegseth reportedly ordered the strikes under Trump’s authority……………………………………………………………………

The Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war, not the president, but this standard has eroded over decades of U.S. imperialism and the “war on drugs.”…………………..

On January 14, the Senate’s GOP majority narrowly blocked a war powers resolution that would have required the president receive permission from Congress before taking further military action. Republicans also blocked an resolution to prohibit the deadly boat strikes and reign in Trump’s war on drug cartels shortly before breaking for the holidays in December. https://truthout.org/articles/rubio-dodges-accountability-at-senate-hearing-as-deadly-boat-strikes-continue/

February 1, 2026 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Legal