President Donald Trump salutes as he attends a military parade commemorating the Army's 250th anniversary, coinciding with his 79th birthday, Saturday, June 14, 2025, in Washington, as Secretary of the Army Daniel Driscoll, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and first lady Melania Trump, watch. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson).
The ACLU filed a federal lawsuit on Tuesday demanding that the DOJ hand over a secret and "classified" Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) memo that justified the Trump administration's "lethal" boat strikes in international waters on alleged drug smugglers, whom the government deems "narcoterrorists."
The memo, referenced publicly by the White House and the Department of Defense, and read by members of Congress, is a document that "the public deserves to know" about, because it answers "how the Trump administration has justified the outright murder of civilians as lawful, and the grounds on which it purports to provide immunity from prosecution for personnel who carried out these crimes," the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit said.
"Prompt disclosure of these records is critically important to ensuring informed public debate about the U.S. military's unprecedented strikes, which have killed more than eighty civilians since September, in clear violation of domestic and international law," the suit said. "Disclosure is also necessary given reports that the OLC Opinion purports to immunize personnel who authorized or took part in these unlawful strikes from future criminal prosecution."
Pointing out that there is a "broad consensus" among "experts on the lawful use of military force" that the strikes are "unlawful," citing the reasoning of "torture memos" author and law professor John Yoo and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., the ACLU added the White House and DOD's public citation of the memo at issue only bolsters the case for the memo's disclosure "as well as any unclassified summaries of that opinion."
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"Since September 2, 2025, President Trump has ordered 22 lethal military strikes against civilians on boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean that the U.S. government claims were carrying drugs, killing 87 people," the complaint went on. "The U.S. military may not summarily kill civilians who are merely suspected of smuggling drugs. It must first pursue non-lethal measures like arrest and demonstrate that lethal force is an absolute last resort to protect against a concrete, specific, and imminent threat of death or serious physical injury."
Noting that one senator told the Washington Post the memo is "broad enough to authorize just about anything" in terms of the "use of force anywhere in the world," the legal justification for immunity must also be exposed, the suit said.
In a statement, ACLU National Security Project attorney Jeffrey Stein referred to immunity as "get-out-of-jail-free cards" for "cold-blooded murder of civilians."
"The Trump administration must stop these illegal and immoral strikes, and officials who have carried them out must be held accountable," Stein said.
The suit comes as Congress demands videos of a second Sept. 2 strike widely denounced as "dishonorable," killing survivors on a boat the U.S. hit, and as Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and President Donald Trump waffle or reverse course on the subject.
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