Trump is an untrustworthy liar. It is more reasonable to assume the boat was full of migrants on a human smuggling run than anything to do with drugs.
Everyone involved in this will eventually need pardons. But this abuse will get much worse before that. The same arguments they use today can be used for extrajudicial murder on land, foreign and domestic. It's just a matter of degree and time.
https://www.justsecurity.org/119982/legal-issues-military-at...