The comments follow the Republican-led Senate Armed Services Committee’s announcement on Friday that they planned to conduct “vigorous oversight” on the strikes.
“The Committee is aware of recent news reports – and the Department of Defense’s initial response – regarding alleged follow-on strikes on suspected narcotics vessels in the SOUTHCOM area of responsibility,” the committee’s Republican chair, Senator Roger Wicker, and his Democrat counterpart, Senator Jack Reed, said in a statement.
“The Committee has directed inquiries to the Department, and we will be conducting vigorous oversight to determine the facts related to these circumstances,” they said.
The House Armed Services Committee too followed suit, saying they were “taking bipartisan action to gather a full accounting of the operation in question”.
In a post on X, Hegseth pushed back against the accusation, calling it “fabricated, inflammatory, and derogatory”. He wrote that the series of strikes on boats were “lawful under both US and international law”.
“Every trafficker we kill is affiliated with a Designated Terrorist Organization,” he wrote.
On Sunday, talking to reporters aboard Air Force One, President Trump defended his defence secretary, saying: “He said he did not say that. And I believe him a 100%.”
Trump said the administration “will look into” the matter and added “I wouldn’t have wanted that – not a second strike”.
On Sunday, Venezuela’s National Assembly condemned the boat strikes and vowed to carry out a “rigorous and thorough investigation” into the accusations of a second attack that allegedly killed two survivors.
The Venezuelan government has accused the US of stoking tensions in the region, with the aim of toppling the government.
The US is not a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, but the US military’s legal advisors have previously said that the US should “act in a manner consistent with its provisions”.
Under the convention, countries agree not to interfere with vessels operating in international waters. There are limited exceptions to this which allow a state to seize a ship, such as a “hot pursuit” where a vessel is chased from a country’s waters into the high seas.
“Force can be used to stop a boat but generally this should be non-lethal measures,” Prof Luke Moffett of Queens University Belfast recently told BBC Verify.