I’m writing to urge you to use your constitutional authority to immediately investigate and halt the Trump regime's expanding military campaign in the Caribbean and the growing threat of strikes on Venezuela. The legal and factual basis for these operations has collapsed.
Multiple reliable reports show that the Justice Department is relying on a secret Office of Legal Counsel memo to justify the missile strikes on unflagged boats in international waters. More than 80 people have already been killed. According to media coverage and sources familiar with the memo, its logic is circular: it declares the strikes legal largely because President Trump claims the cartels are engaged in armed conflict. There is no public evidence this is true.
Worse, the regime will not release the memo because its legal theory is so weak. And now we know that the memo’s core rationale contradicts the President’s own public justification. The memo claims the U.S. is acting in “collective self-defense” of allies like Mexico and Colombia, based on the unproven theory that cartels are waging armed attacks using cocaine revenue. But every time the President speaks about the operation, he says it’s to stop overdose deaths in the United States. These two stories cannot both be true.
This discrepancy is not a small matter. It demonstrates that the administration has no lawful basis for treating these boat passengers as combatants, and no legitimate claim that this is an “armed conflict” that allows lethal force without congressional authorization. It also raises the far more serious possibility that the “drug war” framing is a cover for a different goal.
The scale of the military deployment makes that clear. The USS Gerald R. Ford carrier group—capable of striking land targets deep inside Venezuela—has been positioned in the region. Analysts across the political spectrum agree this footprint far exceeds what is needed for narcotics interdiction. It aligns instead with long-standing strategic objectives concerning Venezuela’s vast oil reserves and ongoing pressure to remove Nicolás Maduro.
This nation has seen what happens when presidents use manufactured threats to justify military action. Congress cannot allow this conflict—based on shifting stories and no evidence—to slide into a wider war or a resource-driven intervention.
I am asking you to use your authority now:
• Demand the release of the OLC memo and all supporting intelligence.
• Hold immediate public hearings on the legal basis for the strikes.
• Assert Congress’s sole power to authorize war.
• Require the Pentagon to disclose rules of engagement and civilian casualty counts.
• Reaffirm that U.S. service members must refuse unlawful orders.
This moment calls for oversight, transparency, and the courage to prevent an illegal war built on contradictions and hidden motives. Please act now before this escalates further.
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