A senior Justice Department official has told Congress that the Trump administration can continue lethal military strikes on alleged drug traffickers without congressional approval and that the administration is not bound by a decades-old war powers law, two congressional sources familiar with the matter told CNN.

The head of the Department of Justice's powerful Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), T. Elliot Gaiser, told select Senate and House lawmakers on Thursday that the US strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean did not trigger the law's requirements because they don't meet the definition of hostilities and did not require a declaration of war from Congress, said the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter

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