Trump confirms CIA conducting covert operations in Venezuela: NPR

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump confirmed Wednesday that he has authorized the CIA to conduct covert operations in Venezuela and said he is considering conducting land operations in the country.

The US spy agency’s recognition of covert actions in Venezuela comes after the US military carried out a series of deadly attacks on suspected drug smuggling boats in the Caribbean in recent weeks. US forces have destroyed at least five boats since early September, killing 27 people, and four of those ships were from Venezuela.

When asked at an Oval Office event on Wednesday why he had authorized the CIA to take action in Venezuela, Trump confirmed he had taken the step.

“I actually authorized it for two reasons,” Trump responded. “No. 1: They emptied their prisons in the United States of America,” he said. “And then there are the drugs. There are a lot of drugs coming in from Venezuela, and a lot of the Venezuelan drugs are coming in through the sea.”

Trump added that the administration is “looking at country” as it considers further strikes in the region. He declined to say whether the CIA has the authority to take action against President Nicolás Maduro.

Trump made the unusual admission of a CIA operation shortly after The New York Times published that the CIA had been authorized to conduct covert action in Venezuela.

Maduro is pushing back

On Wednesday, Maduro lashed out at the U.S. spy agency’s record in several conflicts around the world, without directly addressing Trump’s comments about authorizing the CIA to conduct covert operations in Venezuela.

“No to a regime change that reminds us so much of the overthrows in the failed forever wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and so on,” Maduro said during a televised event of the National Council for Sovereignty and Peace, which is made up of representatives from various political, economic, academic and cultural sectors in Venezuela.

“No to the CIA coups, which remind us so much of the 30,000 people who disappeared,” a figure estimated by human rights organizations such as the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo during the military dictatorship in Argentina (1976-1983). He also referred to the 1973 coup in Chile.

“How long will the CIA continue with its coups? Latin America does not want them, does not need them and rejects them,” Maduro added.

The goal is “to say no to war in the Caribbean, no to war in South America, yes to peace,” he said.

Maduro said in English: “No war, yes peace, no war. Would you say it that way? Who speaks English? No war, yes peace, the people of the United States, please. Please, please, please.”

In a statement Wednesday, the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry rejected “the belligerent and extravagant statements made by the President of the United States in which he publicly admits to authorizing operations to act against the peace and stability of Venezuela.”

“This unprecedented statement constitutes a very serious violation of international law and the Charter of the United Nations and obliges the community of countries to denounce these clearly intemperate and unimaginable statements,” said the statement posted by Foreign Minister Yván Gil on his Telegram channel.

Congressional resistance

Early this month, the Trump administration declared drug cartels unlawful combatants and stated that the United States is now engaged in an “armed conflict” with them, justifying the military action as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs into the United States.

The move has sparked outrage in Congress from members of both major political parties that Trump was essentially committing an act of war without seeking congressional approval.

On Wednesday, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the administration has gone too far, though she supports a crackdown on human trafficking.

“The Trump administration’s authorization of covert CIA actions, carrying out deadly attacks on boats and hinting at land operations in Venezuela brings the United States closer to full-blown conflict without transparency, oversight or apparent guardrails,” Shaheen said. “The American people deserve to know whether the administration is leading the U.S. into a new conflict, endangering military personnel or pursuing a regime change operation.”

The Trump administration has not yet provided any underlying evidence to lawmakers showing that the boats targeted by the U.S. military were in fact transporting narcotics, according to two U.S. officials familiar with the matter.

The officials, who were not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, said the administration has only pointed to unclassified video clips of the strikes posted on social media by Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and has yet to provide “hard evidence” that the ships were carrying drugs.

Lawmakers have expressed frustration that the administration has provided few details about how it came to the conclusion that the U.S. is engaged in armed conflict with cartels or which criminal organizations it claims are “unlawful combatants.”

Even as the U.S. military has carried out attacks on some ships, the U.S. Coast Guard has continued its typical practice of stopping boats and seizing drugs.

Trump played down the move on Wednesday, saying the traditional approach had not worked.

“Because we’ve been doing that for 30 years and it’s been totally ineffective. They have faster boats,” he said. “They are world-class speedboats, but they are not faster than rockets.”

Human rights groups have expressed concern that the strikes violate international law and constitute extrajudicial killings.