Top Republicans praise Venezuela operation as some lawmakers question legal authority : NPR

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., spoke to reporters in December. Thune says he expects briefings this week on strikes in Venezuela and the arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

Heather Diehl/Getty Images North America

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Heather Diehl/Getty Images North America

After months of growing concern among some members of Congress over the Trump administration’s strikes on suspected drug boats in the Caribbean Sea, lawmakers are returning to Washington to face an escalating conflict after U.S. strikes in Venezuela and the capture of President Nicolas Maduro.

President Trump announced early Saturday morning that Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores were aboard a U.S. Navy ship en route to New York, where they will be tried on drug, weapons and conspiracy charges. Trump said the United States would “lead” Venezuela until there was a “safe, appropriate and wise transition.”

The White House briefed some congressional leaders after the operation began, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters, adding that Congress could not be briefed in advance because it would have put the mission at risk.

“Congress has a tendency to leak,” Trump told reporters Saturday. “That wouldn’t be good.”

Trump is expected to meet with all House Republicans on Tuesday at the Kennedy Center, according to a source familiar with the matter who was not authorized to speak on the record. Lawmakers from both parties have called for broader meetings and briefings.

Top congressional Republicans praised Trump, although they said some said they still had questions about how the operation unfolded and what would happen next.

“President Trump’s decisive action to disrupt the unacceptable status quo and apprehend Maduro, through the execution of a valid Department of Justice warrant, is an important first step in bringing him to justice for the drug crimes for which he has been indicted in the United States,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune wrote in a statement.

“I spoke with Secretary Rubio early this morning and look forward to receiving further information from the Administration on this operation as part of its overall counternarcotics strategy when the Senate returns to Washington next week,” Thune wrote.

Republicans react

In recent months, some congressional Republicans have expressed reservations on the actions of the Trump administration in Latin America. The Administration has carried out 35 strikes against suspected drug boats, killing at least 115 people since early September.

Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, wrote in a statement that the operation would be positive for Venezuelans and the region.

“My main concern now is that Russia will use this to justify its illegal and barbaric military actions against Ukraine, or China to justify an invasion of Taiwan,” Bacon wrote. “Freedom and the rule of law were defended last night, but dictators will try to exploit this to rationalize their selfish goals.”

Early this morning, Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) initially expressed questions about the constitutional justifications for acting without a declaration of war or authorization of use of force from Congress.

But Lee later said he spoke to Rubio, who told him that “the kinetic action we saw tonight was deployed to protect and defend those who were executing the arrest warrant.”

“This action likely falls within the President’s inherent authority under Article II of the Constitution to protect U.S. personnel from actual or threatened attack,” Lee wrote.

Democrats demand briefings and justifications

But congressional Democrats have doubled down on criticism of the Trump administration’s actions and questions about legal authority to intervene without congressional approval.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York, issued a statement Saturday calling for the House and Senate to be informed “immediately” that “compelling evidence explaining and justifying this unauthorized use of military force should be presented immediately.”

Jeffries called Maduro a “criminal, authoritarian dictator” and said he “is not the legitimate head of government” but said Trump had a constitutional responsibility to follow the law and “failed to seek authorization from Congress for the use of military force and failed to properly brief Congress before the operation in Venezuela.”

“Pursuant to the Constitution, the Framers gave Congress the exclusive authority to declare war as the branch of government closest to the American people,” Jeffries said.

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., a ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told NPR that the strikes make it clear that it is time for Congress to step in and exercise the branch’s constitutional functions.

“I think these strikes are clearly illegal,” Kaine said Saturday in an interview on NPR. Weekend Edition. “They were not authorized by Congress. And the Constitution clearly states that the United States does not engage in military action or war without a vote of Congress, except in cases of imminent self-defense. The Constitution is absolutely clear on that.”

Kaine also said he would seek a vote this week on his bipartisan resolution banning intervention in Venezuela without congressional approval. A similar Senate resolution failed to attract enough Republican votes.

“We cannot, with a straight face, argue that we support the sovereignty of nations if we are prepared to engage in a unilateral war declared by the president against Venezuela,” Kaine said. “And so it really undermines the morals and the position of the United States in favor of an international rule of law in which nations can invade each other willy-nilly just because a president decides it’s a good idea to do so.”