The Senate Armed Services Committee hearing Wednesday was supposed to be routine — another confirmation session in a season of them — but it quickly turned into a pointed exchange about transparency, international law, and the blurry boundaries of U.S. military operations against cartels.
Rep. Elissa Slotkin, the Michigan Democrat and former CIA analyst now serving her last term in the House before a Senate run, grilled Derrick Anderson, President Trump’s nominee to serve as Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict. Anderson, a former Green Beret, has been tapped to oversee some of the Pentagon’s most sensitive counterterrorism and counter-narcotics missions.
Slotkin homed in on recent incidents in which U.S. forces fired on vessels allegedly linked to drug cartels. Details have been sparse. Full video has not been released, and lawmakers — Slotkin included — say they have not been adequately briefed. “We know how the Coast Guard does interdictions,” Slotkin said, pointing to its practice of disabling engines, boarding ships, seizing drugs, and then showing the evidence. “Instead, we’re left with reports that raise real concerns about potential violations of international law.”
Her line of questioning drilled into what she described as a live problem: U.S. service members now involved in these operations are asking for “legal cover,” worried that absent clearer rules of engagement they could one day be held personally liable. Would Anderson, she asked, commit to providing such protection?
Anderson demurred. “Not being in the position, I want to understand the legalities,” he said. Slotkin pushed back. “That’s your job in three weeks,” she shot back, warning that accountability for those orders could fall squarely on his desk.
The exchange escalated into a broader warning about reciprocity. Slotkin sketched a scenario: if the Mexican Navy believed American fishermen off San Diego were smuggling drugs, would the U.S. accept them firing without warning or oversight? “Because that’s what you’re asking for,” she said.
Anderson resisted the hypothetical, but Slotkin pressed the point — reciprocity isn’t a thought experiment, she argued, it’s the principle that governs how militaries treat each other. What the U.S. does to others, she said, it must expect others might try to do to Americans.
Underlying the sparring was a deeper frustration with the lack of transparency around the administration’s expanding anti-cartel mission. Slotkin said President Trump has claimed seizures of “all kinds of drugs” in recent operations, but evidence has not been shown. “Show us the video. Show us the drugs,” she insisted. Without it, she argued, claims of success ring hollow and risk undermining public trust — not just in the military, but in the civilian leadership overseeing it.
Anderson tried to reassure the panel that, if confirmed, he would commit to transparency with Congress. “I can commit to be transparent,” he said.
Slotkin wasn’t mollified. She urged Anderson to get smart on legal authorities immediately, warning that “if individual folks in uniform are going to be held personally liable for your decisions, you should take accountability for that.”
The hearing ended on a procedural note — with the chair clarifying that Anderson and the other nominees had agreed to provide documents, records, and communications when requested. But Slotkin’s pointed questioning ensured that Anderson’s confirmation process is now tethered to a much bigger set of questions: how far the United States can go in its fight against fentanyl, what rules govern that fight, and who will be accountable when things go wrong.
