In a developing story from Washington, Navy Admiral Frank “Mitch” Bradley is scheduled to present a classified briefing to key congressional figures on Capitol Hill this Thursday. This follows reports that he ordered military action against survivors of an assault on a suspected drug vessel. The meeting will be held with lawmakers responsible for national security oversight.

Admiral Bradley, who now leads the U.S. Special Operations Command, finds himself at the center of a potentially significant congressional investigation. The focus is on the handling of a military operation in international waters off the coast of Venezuela. Questions are being raised about whether Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s actions during the event might have breached legal boundaries.

The controversy stems from a September 2nd incident, reported by The Washington Post, where Bradley allegedly followed Hegseth’s orders to “kill everybody,” resulting in an attack on two survivors. Legal experts argue that if the survivors were intentionally targeted, it could constitute a criminal act. This has prompted bipartisan demands for transparency and justice from lawmakers.

As part of the inquiry, Bradley will address both Republican and Democratic leaders of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees, as well as members of the Senate Intelligence Committee. This closed-door session aims to shed light on the controversial operation and the directives that led to its execution.

In a statement on Wednesday, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer underlined the gravity of the situation, emphasizing the potential legal risks faced by U.S. military personnel. “This is an incredibly serious matter concerning the safety of our troops,” Schumer remarked. “The American public and Congress deserve to know the basic facts surrounding this incident.”

As Bradley appears for questions in the classified setting, lawmakers will be seeking answers to key questions: What orders did Hegseth give regarding the operations? And what was the reasoning for the second strike?

Democratic lawmakers are also demanding that the Trump administration release the full video of the Sept. 2 attack, as well as written records of the orders and any directives from Hegseth. While Republicans, who control the national security committees, have not publicly called for those documents, they have pledged a thorough review.

“The investigation is going to be done by the numbers,” said Sen. Roger Wicker, the chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee. “We’ll find out the ground truth.”

Pressure builds on Hegseth

President Donald Trump has stood behind Hegseth as he defends his handling of the attack, but pressure is mounting on the defense secretary.

Hegseth has said the aftermath of an initial strike on the boat was clouded in the “fog of war.” He has also said he “didn’t stick around” for the second strike, but said Bradley “made the right call” and “had complete authority” to do it.

Also on Thursday, the Defense Department inspector general was expected to release a partially redacted report into Hegseth’s use of the Signal messaging app in March to share information about a military strike against Yemen’s Houthi militants.

The report found that Hegseth put U.S. personnel and their mission at risk by using Signal, according to two people familiar with the findings. The Pentagon, however, has cast the report as an exoneration of Hegseth.

Who is Adm. Bradley?

At the time of the attack, Bradley was the commander of Joint Special Operations Command, overseeing coordinated operations between the military’s elite special operations units out of Fort Bragg in North Carolina. About a month after the strike, he was promoted to commander of U.S. Special Operations Command.

His military career, spanning over three decades, was mostly spent serving in the elite Navy SEALs and commanding joint operations. He was among the first special forces officers to deploy to Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks. His latest promotion to admiral was approved by unanimous voice vote in the Senate earlier this year, and Democratic and Republican senators praised his record.

“I’m expecting Bradley to tell the truth and shed some light on what actually happened,” said Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, adding that he had “great respect for his record.”

Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican, described Bradley as among those who are “rock solid” and “the most extraordinary people that have ever served in the military.”

But lawmakers like Tillis have also made it clear they expect a reckoning if it is found that survivors were targeted. “Anybody in the chain of command that was responsible for it, that had vision of it, needs to be held accountable,” he said.

What else are lawmakers seeking?

The scope of the investigation is not yet clear, but there is other documentation of the strike that could fill in what happened. But obtaining that information will largely depend on action from Republican lawmakers – a potentially painful prospect for them if it puts them at odds with the president.

Sen. Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Armed Services committee, said he and Wicker have formally requested the executive orders authorizing the operations and the complete videos from the strikes. They are also seeking the intelligence that identified the vessels as legitimate targets, the rules of engagement for the attacks and any criteria used to determine who was a combatant and who was a civilian.

Military officials were aware that there were survivors in the water after the initial strike but carried out the follow-on strike under the rationale that it needed to sink the vessel, according to two people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity. What remains unclear – and what lawmakers hope to clarify in their briefing with Bradley – was who ordered the strikes and whether Hegseth was involved, one of the people said.

Republican lawmakers who are close to Trump have sought to defend Hegseth this week, standing behind the military campaign against drug cartels that the president deems “narco-terrorists.”

“I see nothing wrong with what took place,” said Sen. Markwayne Mullin, an Oklahoma Republican, as he argued that the Trump administration was justified in using war powers against drug cartels.

More than 80 people have been killed in the series of strikes that started in September. And for critics of the campaign like Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., the pressing questions about the legality of killing survivors are a natural outgrowth of military action that was always on shaky legal ground. He said it was clear that Hegseth is responsible, even if he didn’t explicitly order a second attack.

“He may not have been in the room, but he was in the loop,” Blumenthal said. “And it was his order that was instrumental and foreseeably resulted in the deaths of these survivors.”