The release of video footage capturing a subsequent airstrike targeting alleged drug smugglers in the Caribbean has ignited a firestorm on Capitol Hill. The controversy centers on the actions of U.S. military forces during a September 2 operation.

Amidst this unfolding drama, Admiral Frank Bradley found himself testifying before Congress in a private session on Thursday. During this closed-door meeting, lawmakers were presented with extended footage of the contentious airstrike.

The spotlight is now on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who faces mounting criticism over the incident. The revelation that two individuals on the targeted vessel were still alive after the initial strike has prompted concerns from both Republican and Democratic lawmakers, who are warning of potential war crimes implications.

Emerging from Admiral Bradley’s briefing, Democratic House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Jim Himes expressed his profound unease to the press. “What I saw in that room was one of the most troubling things that I’ve seen in my time in public service,” Himes stated, underscoring the gravity of the situation.

‘What I saw in that room was one of the most troubling things that I’ve seen in my time in public service,’ Himes said.

‘You have two individuals in clear distress, without any means of locomotion, with a destroyed vessel, who were killed by the United States.’ 

Himes added that he wants the full video to be made public, while stating that he believes Bradley ‘did the right thing’ and has his full support.

Bradley’s testimony to Congress is ongoing. He is expected to argue that he concluded that the survivors were trying to continue their drug–smuggling mission – making them legitimate targets.

Admiral Frank Bradley is testifying before Congress behind closed doors on Thursday – and lawmakers were shown extended footage of the September 2 airstrike (pictured)

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth speaks during a cabinet meeting at the White House, Tuesday

House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Jim Himes, D-CT (pictured on February 15, 2024)

The admiral is speaking in a secure facility at the Capitol to congressional leaders, including the Republican chairman and ranking Democrats of the House and Senate Armed Services committees, and separately to the GOP chairman and Democratic vice–chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. 

The attack was the Trump administration’s first bombing in its two–month campaign in the Caribbean which has seen 14 boats blown up.

Bradley was summoned to Capitol Hill as a source familiar with the strikes told ABC News last night that the actions of the survivors led Pentagon officials to conclude that they were ‘still in the fight.’

Pentagon experts, including a legal adviser, overseeing the mission believed the survivors were potentially in communication with other nearby drugs boats and were trying to salvage the remaining drugs in the ship’s cargo, the source said. 

Hegseth has said he only watched video of the initial strike before leaving the operations center to brief senior White House officials on the mission, and he has publicly defended Bradley as one of the Navy’s finest admirals.

The Secretary of War has been embroiled in scandal after the Washington Post reported that he ordered troops to ‘kill everybody.’

Legal experts say the attack amounts to a crime if the survivors were targeted, and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are demanding accountability.

‘This is an incredibly serious matter. This is about the safety of our troops. This is an incident that could expose members of our armed services to legal consequences,’ Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, of New York, said Wednesday. ‘And yet the American public and the Congress are still not hearing basic facts.’

Navy Adm. Frank Bradley walks to a hold room before attending a closed door classified meeting with lawmakers on Capitol Hill on Thursday

U.S. Navy Adm. Frank M. Bradley, accompanied by Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, right, walks to a meeting with senators on Capitol Hill, Thursday

It comes after a series of lethal American drone strikes against suspected Venezuelan drug traffickers in the region that has killed over 80 people

Lawmakers will be seeking answers to questions such as which orders Hegseth gave regarding the operations and what the reasoning was for the second strike.

Democrats are also demanding that the Trump administration releases the full video of the 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 Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi, who leads the Senate Armed Services Committee. ‘We’ll find out the ground truth.’

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 that 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.

A drone view shows the US Navy guided–missile cruiser USS Gettysburg (CG–64) docked at the port of Ponce, Puerto Rico, November 4

The secure room in the Capitol where Admiral Bradley is set to brief the lawmakers as they probe how Hegseth handled a September bombing of an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean

The report found that the Cabinet member put US 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.

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 US Special Operations Command.

His military career, spanning more than 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 September 11 attacks.

His latest promotion to admiral was approved by unanimous voice vote in the Senate 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 Senator Mark Warner, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, adding that he had ‘great respect for his record.’

Republican Senator Thom Tillis, from North Carolina, described Bradley as among those who are ‘rock solid’ and ‘the most extraordinary people that have ever served in the military.’

Pete Hegseth has been accused of war crimes after the second strike scandal emerged 

But lawmakers, including 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.

The scope of the investigation is unclear, but there is other documentation of the strike that could fill in what happened. Obtaining that information, though, will largely depend on action from Republican lawmakers – a potentially painful prospect for them if it puts them at odds with the president.

Rhode Island Senator 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 were not authorized to discuss it publicly and 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, standing behind the military campaign against drug cartels that the president deems ‘narco–terrorists.’

‘I see nothing wrong with what took place,’ said Republican Senator Markwayne Mullin, from Oklahoma, as he argued that the 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.

For critics of the campaign, including Connecticut’s Democrat Senator Richard Blumenthal, 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 did not 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.’