Top Dem Calls ‘Double Tap’ Video ‘One of the Most Troubling Things I’ve Seen in My Time in Public Service’

House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Jim Himes (D-CT) told reporters Thursday that the video he saw of the Sept. 2nd strikes on alleged drug runners in the Caribbean was “one of the most troubling things I’ve seen in my time in public service.”

A bipartisan group of lawmakers is investigating the controversial “double-tap” strike that took out an alleged drug boat and two remaining survivors.

“He said that he has respect for admiral Bradley. He knows he has a storied career,” MS NOW’s Mychael Schnell reported on Himes’s statement. “He noted that Admiral [Frank] Bradley walked him through and defended his conduct with those strikes. But Himes added, quote, ‘What I saw in that room was one of the most troubling things I’ve seen in my time in public service.’ Congressman Himes continued, saying, quote, ‘You have two individuals in clear distress without any means of locomotion, with a destroyed vessel who were killed by the United States.'”

MS NOW played a clip of Himes saying outright that the U.S. attacked “shipwrecked sailors,” which is against the Geneva Conventions.

“Yes, they were carrying drugs. They were not in the position to continue their mission in any way,” Himes said of the two survivors of the first strike. “We don’t, we don’t — People will someday see this video and they will see that that video shows — If you don’t have the broader context — an attack on shipwrecked sailors.”

Himes added, “The last thing I’m going to say is that the admiral confirmed that there had not been a ‘kill them all’ order, and that there was not an order to grant no quarter.”

President Donald Trump said this week that he will consider releasing video of the second strike.

“I don’t know what they have, but whatever they have would certainly release, no problem,” Trump said.

The Washington Post reported that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told Navy SEALs to “kill everybody” in the strike.

Sources told the Post that in the second strike, the two survivors who were clinging to the side of the boat, were “blown apart in the water.”

Watch the clip above via MS NOW.

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