It turns out, at least according to an NPR report posted on Nov. 17, that the policy of just bombing alleged drug-smuggling boats has been around since at least February, even though the first strike didn’t occur until Sept. 2. At a Justice Department conference in February, then-Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove told the department’s top drug prosecutors that the Trump administration wasn’t interested in interdicting suspected drug vessels at sea anymore. Instead, he said, the U.S. should “just sink the boats,” NPR reported, citing three unnamed sources who attended the conference.
Bove’s remarks, which have not previously been publicly reported, suggest that at least some members of the administration were considering this policy shift as early as six months before the boat strikes began, NPR continued. Nine current and former U.S. officials who worked to combat transnational crime, expressed frustration with what they described as “a dramatic policy shift,” from interdicting suspected drug boats, seizing the drugs, detaining and often prosecuting the crew, as the U.S. has done for decades—to blasting them out of the water and killing those onboard.
In addition to the illegality of extrajudicial killings, one former DOJ official who worked on maritime interdictions pointed to the loss of intelligence that comes from killing suspects: Live suspects in custody can be interrogated about smuggling operations, dead ones can’t. As the intelligence dwindles, the U.S. government’s understanding of the cartels, their money-laundering networks, supply chains, and business strategies will start to go dark.
Bove’s tenure at the DOJ is regarded as controversial, due to his involvement in the deportations of immigrants to El Salvador and threats to prosecute local officials who refused to cooperate with DOJ requests in pursuance of President Donald Trump’s immigration policy. Bove was also accused of a quid pro quo with New York City Mayor Eric Adams, in which Bove would seek the dismissal of a federal case against Adams in return for Adams enforcing federal immigration laws, an accusation that Bove denied. In July, Trump nominated Bove for a federal judgeship, for which he was confirmed over the vehement objections of not only Democrats, but also hundreds of current and former prosecutors and other legal experts. Prior to joining the second Trump Administration in January, Bove had been a member of Trump’s defense team in the legal cases against him in New York.
