WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump confirmed to reporters that he authorized the CIA to conduct covert operations in Venezuela, citing drug trafficking as a primary reason for the decision.
The operation, first reported by The New York Times, is aimed at removing Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro from power.
“I authorized for two reasons, really,” Trump said Wednesday in the Oval Office. “No. 1, they have emptied their prisons into the United States of America,” he said. “And the other thing, the drugs, we have a lot of drugs coming in from Venezuela, and a lot of the Venezuelan drugs come in through the sea.”
Trump has repeatedly accused Venezuela of being a hub for trafficking fentanyl, but federal law enforcement officials have said, and U.S. records show, that Mexico is the main source of the drug. Other drugs like cocaine are produced and smuggled elsewhere in Latin America, the New York Times reports.
On Wednesday, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the administration moved the U.S. closer to outright conflict.
“The American people deserve to know if the Administration is leading the U.S. into another conflict, putting service members at risk or pursuing a regime-change operation,” she said in a statement to Reuters.
Venezuela’s government said Trump’s remarks violated international law and contended the U.S. actions were aimed at legitimizing a “regime change” operation with the goal of seizing the country’s oil resources.
“Our Permanent Mission to the UN will raise this complaint with the Security Council and the Secretary-General tomorrow, demanding accountability from the United States government,” Venezuela said in a statement released by Foreign Minister Yvan Gil.
This followed a week after Trump declared the United States is in a “non-international armed conflict” with drug cartels, according to a memo sent to Congress that provides the administration’s legal justification for a series of deadly maritime strikes in the Caribbean.
In his Wednesday remarks in the Oval Office, Trump added that the U.S. has made progress in intercepting drug shipments at sea and that additional efforts are now focused on overland routes.
“We are looking at land now, because we’ve got the sea very well under control,” Trump said.
At least 27 people have been killed in five strikes on boats off the coast of Venezuela, CBS News reports.
The operations have raised concerns among lawmakers and legal experts, who question the administration’s authority to use military force instead of law enforcement. Critics say the strikes test the limits of presidential power and bypass Congress’s constitutional role in authorizing military action. Legal scholars also note that the Coast Guard, not the military, is the lead U.S. agency for maritime law enforcement.
