Trump says he authorized covert CIA ops in Venezuela

What happened

President Donald Trump Wednesday confirmed he has authorized the CIA to conduct covert operations in Venezuela and said he was also considering military strikes inside the country. Trump announced on Tuesday that the U.S. military had destroyed a fifth boat in the Caribbean, killing six more alleged drug traffickers. With “the sea very well under control,” he told reporters Wednesday, “we are certainly looking at land now.”

Who said what

Trump said he approved the CIA intervention because Venezuelan authorities “have emptied their prisons into the United States” and because “we have a lot of drugs coming in from Venezuela.” He provided no evidence to back up either claim. When asked if the CIA had permission to overthrow President Nicolás Maduro, Trump called it a “ridiculous question” but said he thinks “Venezuela is feeling the heat.”

Trump’s “decision to confirm, even in general terms, his instructions to the CIA was highly unusual,” The Washington Post said. According to The New York Times, which first reported the classified directive, the CIA’s “new authority” allows it to “carry out lethal operations in Venezuela,” including “covert action” against Maduro or his government “either unilaterally or in conjunction with a larger military operation.” U.S. officials “have been clear, privately, that the end goal” of the “intensifying pressure campaign against Venezuela” is to drive Maduro from power, the Times said.

“How long will the CIA continue to carry on with its coups?” Maduro said in a televised speech Wednesday night. “Latin America doesn’t want them, doesn’t need them and repudiates them.” Trump’s decision, The Associated Press said, also “spurred anger in Congress from members of both major political parties that Trump was effectively committing an act of war” on legally dubious grounds and “without seeking congressional authorization.”

What next?

Authorizing “covert CIA action, conducting lethal strikes on boats and hinting at land operations in Venezuela slides the United States closer to outright conflict with no transparency, oversight or apparent guardrails,” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) said Wednesday. “The American people deserve to know if the administration is leading the U.S. into another conflict.”

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