The recent U.S. military operation in Venezuela that led to the capture of Nicolás Maduro has been widely criticized by legal scholars, international bodies, and many U.S. lawmakers as being both a violation of international law and unconstitutional under U.S. domestic law.
Maduro and his wife landed in New York on Saturday hours after being captured during a U.S. military operation in Caracas. They are being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn and will face federal charges related to drug trafficking and working with gangs designated as terrorist organizations, which Maduro denies.
The U.S. Army's Delta Force, an elite special forces unit, carried out the operation to capture Maduro. The legality of the operation will be under scrutiny at the United Nations on Monday when the 15-member U.N. Security Council is set to meet. The military operation knocked out power in parts of Caracas and struck military installations.
Critics argue the operation is unconstitutional because President Trump did not seek or receive prior authorization from the U.S. Congress for the use of military force.
The U.S. Constitution explicitly assigns the power to declare war and authorize military action to Congress (Article I, Section 8). Lawmakers, particularly Democrats, argue that the largescale military operation constituted an act of war, which required congressional approval. The action is seen by critics as a breach of the separation of powers, where the executive branch overstepped its authority. The president’s role as Commander- in-Chief is distinct from Congress's power to initiate hostilities.
Additionally, congressional leaders were reportedly not notified of the operation until after it was underway, a point of significant contention and a potential violation of the War Powers Resolution of 1973, which requires the president to inform congress within 48 hours of sending troops into combat.
In recent decades, congressional consent has usually been granted through an authorization for the use of military force. But an authorization has not been passed for operations in Venezuela. Numerous congressional lawmakers have pursued legislation to prohibit the use of federal funds for any use of military force in or against Venezuela without Congressional authorization.
President Donald Trump said the U.S. military assault succeeded in capturing Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, with both facing U.S. charges related to cocaine trafficking under newly unsealed indictments. During a press conference at Mar-a-Lago on Jan. 3, Trump said the U.S. would 'run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition.'
Tensions between Trump and Maduro escalated in September after the U.S. government began attacking vessels off the coast of Venezuela, killing more than 100 people, in what Trump described as an effort to thwart drug smuggling, critics point to the seized oil tankers and Venezuelan oilfields as the biggest reason for attacking the country.
Trump’s remarks backed up the notion when he said without evidence that the U.S. role in governing Venezuela 'won't cost us anything' because U.S. oil companies would invest in new infrastructure in the oil-rich country. 'It's going to make a lot of money,' said Trump. U.S. oil companies, including Exxon and Mobil and Gulf, now Chevron, lost about $5 billion each in assets and were compensated $1 billion each, according to news reports. But in general, experts said that invading a country to take its oil and resources would be both illegal and unethical. In 2016, Trump mused about how the U.S. should have taken Iraq's oil when it invaded to oust Saddam Hussein.
Experts point to the Annex to the Hague Convention of 1907 on the Laws and Customs of War, which says that 'private property ... must be respected (and) cannot be confiscated.' It also says that 'pillage is formally forbidden.'
Scholars at the Cato Institute provided independent analysis on the implications of the US military raid in Venezuela and the capture of Nicolás Maduro, the country’s socialist dictator. Clark Neily, Senior Vice President for Legal Studies said, “The Constitution deliberately assigns to Congress— not the president— the power to decide when the United States will initiate hostilities against foreign sovereigns. That assignment includes the power to declare war and the related authority to issue letters of marque and reprisal to private entities, both of which reflect a constitutional judgment that decisions risking international conflict, retaliation, and escalation should not rest with a single executive actor.
“When a president unilaterally deploys military force abroad to seize a foreign head of state—effectively collapsing war powers, foreign relations, and criminal law enforcement into a single executive decision— the constitutional safeguards designed to cabin the use of force against other countries are bypassed entirely. That concern is not cured by the existence of a valid indictment. An indictment may (or may not) explain why a president wishes to act, but it cannot supply the constitutional authority to do so through military force without meaningful congressional engagement, let alone authorization.”
Jeffrey A. Singer, Senior Fellow in the Department of Health Policy Studies said, “One of President Trump’s main justifications for the raid that ousted Maduro from power was to prosecute the drug war better. The administration claims it’s fighting ‘narcoterrorists’ who smuggle vast quantities of fentanyl to the US, but the facts do not support this. Fentanyl does not originate from Venezuela, and even the US government’s own intelligence agencies confirm this. Drug smugglers aren’t terrorists and suggesting that military action in Venezuela will ‘save hundreds of thousands of lives’ is pure fantasy detached from any serious policy analysis.”
As to the U.S. the Venezuelan government, Justin Logan, director of defense and foreign policy studies said, “President Trump’s repeated claim, in prepared remarks, that the United States would now ‘run Venezuela’ ‘until a safe, proper, and judicious transition’ can take place was hopefully untrue.
The American people did not sign up for a nation-building campaign in Venezuela. They haven’t even been asked. The Secretary of War’s claim that the attack was about ‘the safety, security, freedom, and prosperity of the American people’ strains credulity past the breaking point.
“We still have no answers to what ‘run Venezuela’ means, nor any clarity about who will be doing it, what it will cost, when it will end, or how it will be paid for. It is well past time for Congress not just to ask questions of the administration but to use the tools “available to it to constrain an administration that has run well beyond its authority.”
Former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife were captured and brought to the U.S. They will appear in federal court at noon on Monday, according to a spokesperson for the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York.
President Trump said in a Saturday press conference that the U.S. would 'run' Venezuela temporarily during the transition, and 'get the oil flowing.' He said Sunday the U.S. was 'in charge' of Venezuela.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio signaled on Sunday the U.S. doesn't plan to directly govern Venezuela, but will continue to enforce an 'oil quarantine' as part of a plan to influence policy. Maduro and his wife landed in New York on Saturday hours after being captured during a U.S. military operation in Caracas. They are being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn and will face federal charges related to drug trafficking and working with gangs designated as terrorist organizations, which Maduro denies.
The U.S. Army's Delta Force, an elite special forces unit, carried out the operation to capture Maduro, officials told CBS News.
The operation followed months of U.S. military buildup in the region, with the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier and numerous other warships positioned in the Caribbean, and a series of deadly strikes on more than 30 boats the administration says were carrying drugs. Mr. Trump insisted the U.S. is 'in charge' of Venezuela following the capture of President Nicolás Maduro, and said the U.S. had been prepared for further military action in Venezuela but it hadn't been needed so far, adding that could change 'if they don't behave.'
The president said he's spoken with several U.S. oil companies about commitments to rebuilding Venezuela's infrastructure, saying they 'wanna go in so bad.'
Mr. Trump also alluded to possible action against Colombian President Gustavo Petro, saying Colombia is 'very sick too, run by a very sick man.' Mr. Trump said he felt Petro is 'not going to be doing it for very long,' and when asked if he would carry out a military operation there as well, the president responded, 'Sounds good to me.'