Subcommittee Ranking Member Crockett’s Opening Statement at Hearing on How Trump’s Soft-on-Drug Policies Are Making America Less Safe
Washington, D.C. (March 18, 2026)—Today, Rep. Jasmine Crockett, Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Oversight, delivered opening remarks at a hearing examining how the Trump Administration is making Americans less safe by pardoning drug kingpins, disbanding anti-drug trafficking task forces, and diverting federal agents away from investigating drug cartels.
Below are Ranking Member Crockett’s remarks, as prepared for delivery, at today’s hearing.
WATCH Ranking Member Crockett’s opening statement.
Ranking Member Jasmine Crockett
Subcommittee on Oversight
“The Legal Basis for Action Against Venezuelan Drug Traffickers”
March 18, 2026
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
A lot of Republicans in Congress and on this committee will argue that Trump’s attack on Venezuela will be good for the Venezuelan people. Let me be clear: Donald Trump does not care about the Venezuelan people. He said that they were invading the United States. He terminated the protected status of more than 350,000 Venezuelans who were granted protection. He deported Venezuelans to the Salvadoran terrorist prison even though many of them had no criminal record.
So, this was never about helping the people of Venezuela. Donald Trump does not care about Venezuelans at all. To be clear: there is no legal basis for the United States government to invade a sovereign country and kidnap its leader. There is no legal basis for recklessly bombing people who pose no immediate threat to the United States.
Donald Trump’s unlawful military action in Venezuela was never about stopping illicit drugs from entering the United States. According to the DEA’s National Drug Threat Assessment, Venezuela has little to no role in smuggling illicit fentanyl into the United States.
In fact, DEA has never listed Venezuela as a fentanyl source or transit country. Coast Guard and military data do not show any fentanyl coming from Venezuelan-linked maritime routes.
And Donald Trump pardoned former Honduran President Juan Hernández, who was found guilty of trafficking more than 400 tons of cocaine into the U.S., which is double the amount of cocaine that Trump’s own State Department estimates was trafficked through the entire country of Venezuela. International drug traffickers love Donald Trump because they know that even if they are arrested, all they know that it’s easy to get a pardon from him.
The data shows that Donald Trump is one of the most pro-drug-trafficking presidents in modern American history. Since he took office, prosecutions for drug trafficking have fallen to the lowest levels in decades. Because the agents tasked with going after drug cartels have either been fired or forced to start raiding your local Home Depot, or illegally breaking into the homes of American citizens, or monitoring community schools and churches so that the government can disappear entire families.
It was never about protecting Americans. It was never about bringing democracy to Venezuela. It was never about stopping illicit drugs from entering the country. Like everything else this administration does, it was about corruption.
The President told oil executives about the planned attack days before it happened. Trump then promised that oil companies would be fully reimbursed by American taxpayers for any investments they make in Venezuela. And once the President illegally took control over Venezuela’s oil reserves, the first sale went to the company of a man who donated $6 million to Trump’s campaign
This is why the President attacked Venezuela. This was about greed. This was about controlling their oil, so that the oil executives who donated to his campaign could make even more money.
This erratic and illegal foreign policy has drawn America into conflict around the world and now at least 13 U.S. servicemembers are dead, and hundreds have been injured.
I yield back.