Wife of Man Aboard Venezuelan Ship Bombed by Trump Says Husband Was a Fisher

A woman who identified herself as the wife of one of the at least 17 people extrajudicially murdered by US military strikes on boats off the coast of Venezuela said her slain husband was a fisher, contradicting the Trump administration's claim that the vessels were trafficking cocaine and other drugs.

The New York Times reported Sunday that the unnamed woman said her husband left one day and never returned to her and their four children. The US has attacked at least two Venezuelan boats this month, prompting allegations of criminality.

The Trump administration has offered no hard evidence—such as drugs or weapons recovered from the targeted boats—to support its assertion that the vessels were smuggling narcotics. While the area where the boats were bombed is a notorious drug-running route, it is also frequented by migrants, human traffickers, and people selling subsidized Venezuelan gasoline in nearby Trinidad and Tobago.

Stephen Miller, President Donald Trump's deputy chief of staff who reportedly once pushed for drone strikes on unarmed migrants, played a key role in directing the strikes on the boats, according to reporting by The Guardian.

The attacks on the boats came amid the US deployment of numerous US warships and thousands of sailors and Marines off the coast of Venezuela, a country Trump has repeatedly threatened with regime change in the face of defiant anti-imperialist resistance from Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. The US has a more than century-long history of meddling in the affairs of Venezuela, one of the world's leading oil producers.

Sources told NBC News last week that Pentagon officials are weighing options for attacks on drug traffickers inside Venezuela, with strikes possible within the next few weeks.