Rand Paul Reveals Venezuela Boat Attack Was a Drone Strike

The senator told The Intercept the attack defied rules of engagement and came from a drone. A legal expert calls it murder

The attack on a boat in the Caribbean last Tuesday was carried out by a drone, according to a Republican senator. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., took aim at the Trump administration for glorifying the killing of people without trial, saying that the “lethal strike” was a breach of long-accepted rules of engagement. He also disclosed that it was a drone strike, a fact that the Pentagon and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth have refused to reveal. Paul first criticized the attack in a back-and-forth with Vice President JD Vance on social media. Vance responded to the suggestion that the strike was a war crime by writing on X, “I don’t give a shit what you call it.” Paul responded on Saturday calling Vance’s comments about killing people without a trial “despicable and thoughtless.” Paul told The Intercept he didn’t oppose the use of drones in war but objected to summarily killing people without due process.

“During my time in the Senate, I have been the foremost critic of drones being used on civilians, especially Americans,” said Paul, a member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. “The recent drone attack on a small speedboat over 2,000 miles from our shore without identification of the occupants or the content of the boat is in no way part of a declared war and defies our longstanding Coast Guard rules of engagement which include: warnings to halt, non-lethal force to capture, and ultimately lethal force in self-defense or in cases of resistance.”

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Brian Finucane, a former State Department lawyer who is a specialist in counterterrorism issues and the laws of war, said that given the evidence that has emerged, the government’s statements, and after discussions with other national security lawyers in the week since the strike, he has formed stronger conclusions about the legality of the attack.

“I’m much more inclined to think this was just flat-out murder. And I’ve bent over backwards to be generous to the government in my interpretations,” he told The Intercept. “There are circumstances in which the U.S. can use lethal force but that is in the context of an armed conflict, against a lawful target — an enemy combatant. The Trump administration has not even bothered to make that argument. They have not argued that the United States is in an armed conflict governed by the law of war. They have not argued, much less substantiated, that the target of this attack was a lawful target.”

"Outside of armed conflict, we have a word for the premeditated killing of people. That word is murder.”

https://theintercept.com/2025/09/10/trump-venezuela-boat-attack-drone/


Very good points made in this article.