But on Monday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the second deadly strike did occur. She said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had authorized an admiral to conduct “these kinetic strikes” on the suspected drug vessel — and she said that second strike was conducted in “self-defense to protect Americans in vital United States interests.”

Even before Leavitt’s admission that the second strike happened, some legal experts and U.S. lawmakers had already expressed alarm. They argued that even if one accepts the flimsy legal pretext the administration says justifies its belligerence in the seas of the Western hemisphere, that the second deadly strike constituted either a war crime or murder.