Trump Should Have Tried To Get Congressional Authorization If He Wanted To Strike Venezuela and Capture Maduro
The strikes against Venezuela and the capture of Nicolás Maduro might be popular or defensible. They were not legal.
The U.S. military strikes that targeted Venezuela on Saturday morning and the subsequent capture of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro and his wife may turn out to be popular or defensible, given Maduro's history of despotism and the legal indictments awaiting him in federal court.
What they were not, however, is legal.
The U.S. Constitution gives Congress the sole authority to approve military strikes against foreign countries. Federal laws, like the War Powers Resolution, allow for unilateral executive action only in response to an imminent threat against Americans or U.S. troops. That separation of powers is fundamental to American democracy—not an optional arrangement for presidents to discard when it is politically or logistically inconvenient.
At a press conference on Saturday morning, President Donald Trump termed the attack an "extraordinary military operation," which he claimed was unlike anything seen since World War II. Therefore, there should be no debate about what this was: a military strike, one that utterly lacked congressional authorization.
Trump also clarified that the U.S. would "run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper, and judicious transition" to a new leader. "We are going to stay until such time as a proper transition can take place," he added.
Again, that leaves little room for debate. This was a regime change operation, and one that creates an ongoing responsibility for the American military.
Vice President J.D. Vance tried a different line of argument earlier on Saturday, when he claimed on X that Trump did not need congressional authorization for the attack on Venezuela because "Maduro has multiple indictments in the United States for narcoterrorism. You don't get to avoid justice for drug trafficking in the United States because you live in a palace in Caracas."
That argument, however, shreds the concept of separation of powers. The executive branch makes indictments. If it is also allowed to use the existence of those indictments to authorize military strikes in foreign nations, then there is no need for Congress to be involved at all.
Indeed, if Vance's argument were correct, why did President George W. Bush bother going to Congress for an Authorization for the Use of Military Force to invade Iraq? It would have been much easier to simply have the attorney general indict Saddam Hussein, then send in in the troops.
For that matter, Vance should ponder whether the world is a safer place under this precedent. Is any nation justified in seizing another nation's leader—even a nasty, illegal one like Maduro—for any alleged crimes? Does the existence of an indictment allow for "extraordinary military operations" anywhere, at any time? That's a framework that seems certain to create more international chaos, not more stability.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, during Saturday's press conference, said giving notification to Congress could have "jeopardized" the mission. That's a view that treats the Constitution and federal law as optional, which they should not be.
Again, it's important to separate the question of whether this attack was legal and constitutional from the broader political and geopolitical issues here. Maduro was a thug and a dictator who rigged elections and impoverished his own people. His regime has been a disaster for Venezuela and for the stability of the Western Hemisphere. No one should have any sympathy for him, and it may very well turn out to be a blessing that he is now removed from power. (Then again, regime change also has a tendency to make bad situations worse; time will tell.)
All of that, however, should only underline the importance of getting proper authorization for Saturday's strikes.
The Trump administration claims Maduro was violating the law, but the U.S. loses its moral high ground by acting illegally to remove him. If Trump is doing the right thing by taking Maduro out, then it should have been easy to make that case to Congress.
Now, Congress must grapple with a different question: how to respond to the Trump administration's illegal act.
"The real question isn't whether this action was legal; it is what to do about its illegality. Ignoring the law and the people's will in this fashion is a high crime," writes Conor Friedersdorf in The Atlantic. "Any Congress inclined to impeach and remove Trump from office over Venezuela would be within their rights. That outcome is unlikely unless Democrats win the midterms. But Congress should enforce its war power. Otherwise, presidents of both parties will keep launching wars of choice with no regard for the will of people or our representatives."
On that last point: The most obvious parallel to what is now happening in Venezuela is the 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama, which toppled the regime of Manuel Noriega. That action was approved by President George H.W. Bush, notably without any congressional approval.
In other words, Trump's violation of the rule of law on Saturday morning is not without precedent. That creates some awkward considerations. Trump's critics often want to frame him as a radical and unique threat to democracy. But, as is often the case, Trump is merely pulling levers of power that already existed. Congress shrugged off the elder Bush's attack on Panama, which paved the way for its sequel.
The president's defenders, however, face a similar conundrum. Trump ran for president as a repudiation of the Bush legacy and the neoconservative control of the Republican Party. He just launched a regime change operation that looks a lot like a replay of the Bush years—regardless of whether you prefer Iraq or Panama as the more apt analog.
Those political considerations, though, are somewhat beside the point. Here's what matters: Maduro was a bad guy. In taking him out, Trump appears to have violated the Constitution, federal war powers statutes, and the rule of law. By failing to get authorization from Congress, Trump has ceded America's moral high ground, further eroded our democracy, and made the world a more dangerous place.
