President Donald Trump notified Congress this week that the U.S. is now engaged in an official “armed conflict” with drug cartels, according to a confidential notice obtained by the New York Times.

The Times reported on Thursday that the “notice was sent to several congressional committees” and “adds new detail to the administration’s thinly articulated legal rationale for why three U.S. military strikes the president ordered on boats in the Caribbean Sea last month, killing all 17 people aboard them, should be seen as lawful rather than murder.”

The Associated Press also obtained the Trump administration’s notification to Congress, which the outlet reported “declared drug cartels operating in the Caribbean are unlawful combatants” and said the U.S. is now in a “non-international armed conflict.”

The Times reporters who broke the story, Charlie Savage and Eric Schmitt, discussed the impact of the notification in their report:

Mr. Trump’s move to formally deem his campaign against drug cartels as an active armed conflict means he is cementing his claim to extraordinary wartime powers, legal specialists said. In an armed conflict, as defined by international law, a country can lawfully kill enemy fighters even when they pose no threat, detain them indefinitely without trials and prosecute them in military courts.

The Times quoted Geoffrey S. Corn, a retired judge advocate general lawyer for the Army, saying that Trump’s declaration blurs the emergency war powers available to him, given that drug cartel members are not engaged in outright “hostilities” against the U.S. The Times added of Corn’s comments:

Noting that it is illegal for the military to deliberately target civilians who are not directly participating in hostilities — even suspected criminals — Mr. Corn called the president’s move an “abuse” that crossed a major legal line.

“This is not stretching the envelope,” he said. “This is shredding it. This is tearing it apart.”

This is a developing story and has been updated.

The post BREAKING: Trump Tells Congress the U.S. is Engaged In ‘Armed Conflict’ With Drug Cartels, Times Reports first appeared on Mediaite.

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