Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) claimed the Trump administration’s first military strike on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean was either a “war crime” or “murder.”
Partial transcript as follows:
JONATHAN KARL: So let me ask you about that Washington Post report on the — on the attack on that Venezuelan alleged drug boat. What do you make of what happened there? Do you think there was a war crime committed?
VAN HOLLEN: I think it’s very possible there was a war crime committed. Of course, for it to be a war crime, you have to accept the Trump administration’s whole construct here.
KARL: That we’re at war.
VAN HOLLEN: Which is we’re in armed conflict, at war with this particular — with the drug gangs. Of course, they’ve never presented the public with the information they’ve got here. But it could be worse than that. Right? If that theory is wrong, then it’s plain murder.
KARL: The first strike is murder in that case?
VAN HOLLEN: That’s correct.
KARL: You’re alleging.
VAN HOLLEN: That’s correct. Well, I’m saying that it’s either murder from the first strike, if their whole theory is wrong, and I think, you know, the weight of the legal opinion here is that they have concocted this ridiculous legal theory. But even if you accept their theory than it is a war crime, and so I do believe that the secretary of Defense should be held accountable for giving those kind of orders.
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