A federal judge on Wednesday rejected key Trump administration arguments for keeping secret a Justice Department memo used to justify its lethal boat strikes in the Caribbean and Pacific, ordering the administration to turn over the document before he decides whether it must be made public.
U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer found that the Department of Defense adopted the memo as its “working law,” making it more than confidential legal advice that could be withheld from the public.
“The Memo binds DOD and defines the parameters of its authority to undertake boat strikes,” Engelmayer wrote. “As to this area of DOD operations, it sets the boundaries within which the agency can operate.”
The ruling does not require the administration to release the memo yet.
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Engelmayer ordered the Justice Department and Pentagon to turn over the memo for his private review within 14 days and provide more information about who had access to it, when and for what purpose.
The September 2025 memo from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel lays out the administration’s legal basis for carrying out lethal strikes on boats it says are involved in drug trafficking. The Justice Department and Pentagon have refused to release the memo, citing three exemptions in the Freedom of Information Act.
Engelmayer rejected two of those arguments. He ruled that the government cannot keep the entire memo secret by treating it as either internal deliberations or confidential legal advice after the Pentagon adopted it as the legal framework its commanders were expected to follow.
He has not yet decided whether a separate protection for presidential communications allows the administration to withhold it.
The judge also signaled that at least some of the memo could eventually become public.
“It is all but certain” that parts of the document, particularly its legal analysis, fall outside exemptions protecting classified information and intelligence sources and methods, Engelmayer wrote.
That does not mean the entire memo will be released. Classified facts could still be redacted, and Engelmayer has not yet decided how much of the document is protected.
The Trump administration has carried out at least 70 strikes since September 2025 on boats it says were involved in drug trafficking in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, killing more than 200 people.
The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU Foundation and the Center for Constitutional Rights sued the Justice Department and Pentagon after seeking the memo under the Freedom of Information Act.
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