Federal judge orders Trump DOJ to produce secret memo behind boat strikes

A federal judge has ordered the Trump Justice Department to hand over the secret legal memo behind US boat strikes in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific that have killed more than 230 people since last year.

In a 66-page ruling issued Wednesday, Judge Paul Engelmayer, a U.S. district judge in New York, gave the government until October 14 to produce the Office of Legal Counsel memo for in-camera review before deciding on public release.

The judge rejected two of the Justice Department’s three privilege claims — deliberative process and attorney-client privilege — leaving only presidential communications privilege unresolved.

Judge Engelmayer found the Pentagon had treated the memo “as its effective law and policy governing the boat strikes”, making it “working law” rather than internal advice, with the White House holding it out the same way. The government must also name who has seen the memo, according to reporting.

The September 2025 memo purported to justify strikes on boats suspected of drug trafficking. The ACLU, the ACLU Foundation and the Center for Constitutional Rights sued under FOIA after the Defence Department denied their request.

ACLU staff attorney Jeffrey Stein called the order “a huge step in the right direction of ensuring that the government does not get to summarily execute people based on secret law”. “The public deserves to know how our government is justifying the cold-blooded murder of hundreds of civilians,” he said. The Center for Constitutional Rights’ Baher Azmy added: “No president can arbitrarily assassinate people from the sky based on their sole say-so.”