{"id":120187,"date":"2026-01-04T23:46:18","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T23:46:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/120187\/"},"modified":"2026-01-04T23:46:18","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T23:46:18","slug":"u-s-national-intelligence-director-is-silent-on-venezuela-operation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/120187\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. national intelligence director is silent on Venezuela operation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WASHINGTON\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard had yet to weigh in on the U.S. operation to remove Nicol\u00e1s Maduro<\/a> from power in Caracas as of Saturday night, more than 24 hours since President Trump approved the audacious mission that captured the Venezuelan leader.<\/p>\n

Her silence on the operation surprised some in the U.S. intelligence community, which laid the groundwork for the mission over several months, and which had assets in harm\u2019s way on the ground in Venezuela as the operation unfolded.<\/p>\n

CIA Director John Ratcliffe, by contrast, accompanied Trump in Mar-a-Lago throughout the night as the extraction was underway, and stood beside the president as he conducted a news conference announcing the results.<\/p>\n

\u201cTeamwork at its finest,\u201d Ratcliffe wrote on social media<\/a>, posted alongside photos of him with the president\u2019s team in the temporary situation room set up at Trump\u2019s Florida estate.<\/p>\n

Gabbard, a native of Hawaii who, according to her X account, spent the holidays in her home state, made a name for herself as a member of Congress campaigning against \u201cregime change wars,\u201d particularly the U.S. war in Iraq that toppled Saddam Hussein.<\/p>\n

In a speech at Turning Point USA\u2019s annual conference last month, Gabbard criticized \u201cwarmongers\u201d in the \u201cdeep state\u201d of the intelligence community she leads trying to thwart Trump\u2019s efforts to broker peace between Russia and Ukraine.<\/p>\n

\u201cToo often we, the American people, are told we must choose between liberty or security, and which side often wins out in that proposition,\u201d she told the gathered crowd. \u201cLiberty loses, and the warmongers claim that they are doing what they are doing for the sake of our security. It\u2019s a lie.\u201d<\/p>\n

Outside of government, during Trump\u2019s first term, Gabbard also criticized advocates for regime change in Venezuela, writing in 2019<\/a>, \u201cIt\u2019s about the oil … again.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe United States needs to stay out of Venezuela,\u201d Gabbard wrote at the time. \u201cLet the Venezuelan people determine their future.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t want other countries to choose our leaders,\u201d she added, \u201cso we have to stop trying to choose theirs.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard had yet to weigh in on the U.S. operation to remove Nicol\u00e1s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":120188,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[63399,63393,63390,48,52,51,11139,47,50,49,3020,63392,24843,8580,1519,63395,63394,63398,63391,63397,63396],"class_list":["post-120187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-annual-conference-last-month","tag-audacious-mission","tag-gabbard","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-liberty","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-president-trump","tag-regime-change-war","tag-saturday-night","tag-security","tag-trump","tag-u-s-intelligence-community","tag-u-s-operation","tag-u-s-national-intelligence-director","tag-venezuela-operation","tag-venezuelan-leader","tag-warmonger"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120187\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}