https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/04/democrats-trump-white-house-venezuela
Lawmakers call US intervention and capture of Maduro ‘wildly illegal’ and say it lacked congressional approval
Democratic leaders responded with fury on Sunday to Donald Trump’s military intervention in Venezuela, slamming it as an illegal act carried out in the absence of required congressional approval that would lead to disaster for the American people.
Top Democrats took to the Sunday TV political talk shows to express their dismay at the lack of any prior notification of lawmakers about the audacious military raid 24 hours earlier.
They portrayed the action to unseat the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, as unlawful under the US constitution and ill-advised in terms of the US standing in the world, where numerous authorities, including the secretary general of the United Nations, have accused the US of breaching the UN’s founding charter.
“They literally lied to our face,” said Chris Murphy, a US senator from Connecticut, on Sunday, referring to a briefing on Venezuela that the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, gave to his chamber last month. “The message they sent was that this wasn’t about regime change … They said this is just a counter-narcotics operation.”
In an appearance on CNN’s State of the Union, Murphy called the action in Venezuela in the early hours of Saturday “wildly illegal”, adding: “There is no way to trust this administration.”
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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/04/democrats-trump-white-house-venezuela
