Senate threatens to freeze Hegseth’s travel in bid for boat strike videos, Iran school strike probe
Major defence legislation approved by the Senate Armed Services Committee freezes three quarters of the Defence Secretary’s travel budget until Congress gets what it wants.

Senate lawmakers are threatening to freeze Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s travel budget if the Pentagon doesn’t turn over more details about the deadly bombing of an Iranian girls school in February and full videos of lethal strikes against alleged drug smuggling boats in the waters off Latin America.

The provisions, tucked into the Senate Armed Services Committee’s defense policy bill, would withhold 75 percent of the Pentagon chief’s travel budget until lawmakers receive the documentation.

The move is an escalation from late last year, when lawmakers passed and President Donald Trump signed defense legislation that restricted a quarter of Hegseth’s travel budget in an effort to force the department to turn over the videos and fulfill other lingering requests. The renewed provisions suggest lawmakers still haven’t gotten the information they want.

It also signals continued bipartisan dissatisfaction with the Pentagon ignoring or slow-walking responses to congressional inquiries. The provisions are part of the annual National Defense Authorization Act approved last week by the Republican-led panel. Senate Armed Services leaders filed the bill on Tuesday.

Lawmakers, including some of Trump’s GOP allies, have complained Pentagon leadership has kept them in the dark on major national security decisions. They’ve underscored that dissatisfaction as they’ve demanded more information about the nascent Iran peace deal Trump and his team have been trying to sell in Washington.

The latest Senate bid to jam the Pentagon faces a long road to becoming law. Competing legislation approved by the House Armed Services Committee doesn’t include similar language. The funding freeze must survive negotiations between the two chambers over the next few months.

More than 200 individuals have been killed in U.S. boat strikes against suspected drug traffickers since September 2025. Congressional Democrats have repeatedly attacked the justification for the mission — Operation Southern Spear — as legally unsound and raised the possibility the strikes could amount to war crimes.

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/06/17/senate-threatens-to-freeze-hegseths-tra...