{"id":203019,"date":"2025-10-16T00:32:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-16T00:32:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/203019\/"},"modified":"2025-10-16T00:32:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-16T00:32:08","slug":"trump-confirms-he-authorized-covert-cia-operations-in-venezuela-venezuela","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/203019\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump confirms he authorized covert CIA operations in Venezuela | Venezuela"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump<\/a> confirmed reports on Wednesday that he authorized the CIA to conduct covert operations in Venezuela, marking a sharp escalation in US efforts to pressure President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro<\/a>\u2019s regime.<\/p>\n

The New York Times first reported the classified directive, citing US officials familiar with the decision.<\/p>\n

The US president said he authorized the action for two main reasons.<\/p>\n

First, he claimed Venezuela<\/a> had been releasing large numbers of prisoners, including individuals from mental health facilities, into the United States, often crossing the border due to what he described as an open border policy. Trump did not specify which border they were crossing.<\/p>\n

The second reason, he said, was the large amount of drugs entering the US from Venezuela, much of it trafficked by sea.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Venezuela is feeling heat,\u201d Trump added, but declined to answer when asked if the CIA<\/a> had the authority to execute Maduro.<\/p>\n

Trump added the administration \u201cis looking at land\u201d as it considers further strikes in the region. He declined to say whether the CIA has authority to take action against Maduro.<\/p>\n

Early this month, the Trump administration<\/a> declared drug cartels to be unlawful combatants and pronounced the United States is now in an \u201carmed conflict\u201d with them, justifying the military action as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs into the US.<\/p>\n

The move has spurred anger in Congress from members of both major political parties that Trump was effectively committing an act of war without seeking congressional authorization.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, Jeanne Shaheen, the ranking Democratic senator on the Senate foreign relations committee, said while she supports cracking down on trafficking, the administration has gone too far.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Trump administration\u2019s authorization of 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,\u201d Shaheen said. \u201cThe American people deserve to know if the administration is leading the US into another conflict, putting servicemembers at risk or pursuing a regime-change operation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maduro decried Trump\u2019s comments in what he called \u201ccoups d\u2019etat orchestrated by the CIA\u201d shortly after Trump also said he was considering strikes against Venezuelan cartels on land.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo to war in the Caribbean. No to regime change. No to coups d\u2019etat orchestrated by the CIA,\u201d Maduro, the leftist leader, said in an address to a committee set up after Washington deployed warships in the Caribbean for what it said was an anti-drug operation.<\/p>\n

skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n

Sign up to This Week in Trumpland<\/p>\n

A deep dive into the policies, controversies and oddities surrounding the Trump administration<\/p>\n

Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n

At least 27 people have been killed in the US Caribbean attacks so far.<\/p>\n

After another boat was struck, Maduro on Wednesday ordered military exercises in the country\u2019s biggest shantytowns and said he was mobilizing the military, police and a civilian militia to defend Venezuela\u2019s \u201cmountains, coasts, schools, hospitals, factories and markets\u201d.<\/p>\n

Trump has claimed they are \u201cnarcoterrorists\u201d without providing evidence.<\/p>\n

The US leader accuses Maduro of heading a drug cartel \u2013 charges he denies. In August, Washington doubled a bounty for information leading to Maduro\u2019s capture to $50m.<\/p>\n

The Venezuelan leader is widely accused of having stolen elections last year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donald Trump confirmed reports on Wednesday that he authorized the CIA to conduct covert operations in Venezuela, marking…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":203020,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-203019","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203019"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203019\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/203020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}