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Tuesday, January 6, 2026

Looking at ‘Venezuela List’ Attributed to Hugo Carvajal:

The List has been going viral on Social Media – The List is Probably Fake BUT the Letter is Legit

 

John R. Houk, Blog Editor

© January 6, 2026

Cape Fear Beacon Hugo Carvajal Photo from 12/8/25 post “Venezuela’s Asymmetric War on U.S.: Former Chavez Military Spy Puts Operation Southern Spear in Perspective

 

To be clear, MOST of the (once) Free World is in rare agreement that Venezuela’s 2024 Election process was fraudulent. Via the English version of Alerta Venezuela (August 1, 2025):

 

“One year after the presidential election of July 28, 2024—widely denounced as fraudulent by both national and international actors—Venezuela is experiencing its darkest moment for human rights since the beginning of Nicolás Maduro’s regime. The electoral process, marked by the disqualification of opposition candidates, media censorship, and voter coercion, ended with the illegitimate proclamation of Maduro as president. This occurred despite the National Electoral Council openly altering electoral protocols and seizing the voting records, thereby deepening the institutional crisis that has plagued the country for over a decade.

 

Post-Election Repression: A Systematic Pattern

 

Far from seeking a democratic solution to the crisis, the de facto government has intensified its repression of opposition leaders, civil society organizations, and citizens critical of the regime. From August 2024 to date, human rights organizations have documented more than 2,000 arbitrary detentions related to political dissent. Among those detained are political party leaders as well as human rights defenders, journalists, and union members.

 

Many of these detainees have been prosecuted in military courts or charged with unfounded accusations such as “conspiracy,” “terrorism,” or “treason,” often in trials lacking the minimum guarantees of due process. Detention conditions in facilities such as El Helicoide or La Tumba continue to be denounced by international bodies due to the systematic use of physical and psychological torture.” READ ALL

 

AND FROM the Human Rights Foundation posted on 7/31/24:

 

NEW YORK (July 31, 2024) — The Human Rights Foundation (HRF) reiterates its strong condemnation of dictator Nicolás Maduro’s fraudulent proclamation as Venezuela’s reelected president. The regime-controlled National Electoral Council (CNE) announced Maduro’s electoral victory on the evening of July 28 after hours of uncertainty and an interruption in data processing. Two days later, the regime has not yet provided evidence to support their electoral claims.

 

Meanwhile, the opposition campaign led by presidential candidate Edmundo González Urrutia and María Corina Machado organized a well-coordinated effort to collect all voting backup information to sustain the official result of the presidential election. With 81.21% of the official ballot tally sheets collected and made public on two websites — one where the world can see the latest numbers and another where Venezuelans can verify their actual votes — the opposition has credibly shown its wide-margin victory with 67% of the national vote versus Maduro’s 30%.

 

“Maria Corina Machado has inspired a tidal wave of unity for Venezuelan democracy. The people of Venezuela have had enough and they deserve the support of democrats from around the world,” HRF Chair Yulia Navalnaya said. “Victory over dictators like Maduro is never quick and it is never easy. It will be a hard road and the international community must seize this opportunity to stand by the Venezuelan people. This is the moment for Venezuela,” Navalnaya added.” READ ALL

 

Since the fraud was obvious, how were the votes tallied? Venezuela had been using voting machines since 2004. Smartmatic claims to have pulled out do to voting manipulation, but SURPRISE – Smartmatic software was still used:

 

o   After disputed vote, Smartmatic said it left Venezuela. But its software was used in more elections; By Antonio Maria Delgado; Miami Herald; UPDATED 10/8/24 6:22 PM

 

This is where you should start contemplating: If Smartmatic software had been manipulated for decades in Venezuela, what makes you think America’s 2020 Election was not manipulated even with Dominion voting Machines? KEEP IN MIND not a single Court would listen to Election Fraud suits based on merits! Rather a corrupt American Judiciary shut down Election Fraud suits based on the idiocy of a lack of standing! HELLO VENEZUELA in America.

 

SEE ALSO:

 

o   Voting machine firm: Venezuela vote rigged "without any doubt"; By AP; CBS NEWS; 8/2/17 10:59 AM EDT

 

o   Voting machine systems have foreign ties; ORIGINALLY The Epoch Times; The CubanAmerican Voice; 12/8/20

 

o   CIA whistleblower links Venezuelan cartel and China to global electronic elections; By cairnsnews; Cairn News; 10/25/24

 

o   Nicolás Maduro’s Voting Machine Connections; By Mark Schwendau; the thinking conservative; 1/3/26

 

This is where I circle back to the Hugo Carvajal “Venezuela List”. First, who is Hugo Carvajal? FROM Grokipedia:

 

Hugo Armando Carvajal Barrios (born 1960), nicknamed "El Pollo" (The Chicken), is a Venezuelan retired general and former intelligence chief who directed the Directorate General of Military Counterintelligence (DGIM) from 2004 to 2011 under Presidents Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro, leveraging his position to facilitate drug trafficking as part of the "Cartel de los Soles" network.[1][2] After retiring from active military service, he served as a deputy in Venezuela's National Assembly representing the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) until publicly defecting in February 2019 to support opposition interim president Juan Guaidó, fleeing to Spain where he was arrested on U.S. narco-terrorism indictments.[3][4] Extradited to the United States in July 2023 following European Court of Human Rights approval, Carvajal pleaded guilty in June 2025 to charges of narco-terrorism, firearms trafficking, and international cocaine distribution, admitting to protecting narcotics shipments and providing military-grade weapons to Colombian FARC guerrillas in exchange for bribes.[1][5] His case underscores systemic corruption within Venezuela's military elite, with U.S. authorities designating him a key figure in state-sponsored drug operations that flooded international markets with cocaine while undermining regional security.”MORE TO READ especially if you are interested in the footnotes.

 

Unfortunately the list of Senators being circulated on various Social Media appears fraudulent. The actual letter from Hugo Carvajal has no Senator List. Rather the Carvajal letter to President Trump according to The Dallas Express bullet points exported the Marxist corruption abroad:

 

§  Former Venezuelan intelligence chief Hugo Carvajal — once a top Chávez and Maduro insider — pleaded guilty in U.S. federal court in June and now warns that Venezuela is a “narco-terrorist organization” intentionally targeting the United States.

 

§  Carvajal alleges the Maduro regime weaponized cocaine, collaborated with FARC, ELN, Cuban intelligence, and Hezbollah, and exported violent criminal networks — including Tren de Aragua — into the United States.

 

§  He asserts Venezuelan and Cuban intelligence infiltrated U.S. institutions for two decades, including military installations.

 

§  He claims Smartmatic was developed inside Venezuela as an election-manipulation tool later deployed abroad.

 

§  Carvajal says he supports Trump’s Venezuela policies and stands ready to provide further details to federal authorities.

 

The Dallas Express post is from 12/3/25 and includes photos of the Hugo Carvajal Letter to President Trump (I’ll share the photos below the Telegram post of the viral list of Senators). HERE is The Dallas Express version of the three page letter (I added bold text emphasis in matters relating to the USA):

 

United States of America
December 2, 2025

 

Dear Mr. President Trump and The People of the United States,

My name is Hugo Carvajal Barrios. For many years, I was a high-ranking member of the Venezuelan regime. I was a three-star general trusted by both Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro and served as Director of Military Intelligence and a Deputy in the National Assembly. Today, I sit in an American prison because I voluntarily plead guilty to the crimes charged against me: a narco-terrorism conspiracy. I write to atone by telling the full truth so that the United States can protect itself from the dangers I witnessed for so many years.

 

I publicly broke with the Maduro regime in 2017 and fled my country, knowing that I face criminal charges in the United States. In doing so, I became their enemy. Knowing the risks, I acted with the strongest conviction to dismantle Maduro’s criminal regime and bring freedom to my country. Today, I see the need to address the American people about the reality of what the Venezuelan regime truly is—and why President Trump’s policies are not only correct, but absolutely necessary to the United States’ national security.

 

1.  Narco-Terrorism

 

I personally witnessed how Hugo Chavez’s government became a criminal organization that is now run by Nicolás Maduro, Diosdado Cabello, and other senior regime officials.

 

The purpose of this organization, now known as the Cartel of the Suns is to weaponize drugs against the United States. The drugs that reached your cities through new routes were not accidents of corruption nor just the work of independent traffickers; they were deliberate policies coordinated by the Venezuelan regime against the United States.

 

This plan was suggested by the Cuban regime to Chávez in the mid-2000s and has been successfully executed with help from FARC, ELN, Cuban operatives, and Hezbollah. The regime has provided weapons, passports, and impunity for these terrorist organizations to operate freely from Venezuela against the United States.

 

2.  Tren de Aragua

 

I was present when decisions were made to organize and weaponize criminal gangs across Venezuela to protect the regime—among them the group known as Tren de Aragua. Chávez ordered the recruitment of criminal leaders inside and outside prisons to defend “the revolution” in exchange for impunity. After Chávez died, Maduro expanded this strategy by exporting criminality and chaos abroad to target Venezuelan political exiles and artificially reduce crime statistics within Venezuela. Gang leaders were instructed to send thousands of members out of the country. This was coordinated through the Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Prisons, the National Guard, and national police forces. Tren de Aragua became the most effective and fastest growing.

 

When the Biden–Harris open-border policy became widely known, they seized the opportunity to send these operatives into the United States. They now have obedient, armed personnel on American soil. To finance their operations, they were explicitly instructed to continue kidnapping, extorting, and killing. Every crime they commit on your soil is an act ordered by the regime.

 

3.  Counterintelligence and Espionage Against the United States

 

I was present when Russian intelligence came to Caracas to propose to Hugo Chávez the tapping of submarine internet cables that connect most of South America and the Caribbean islands with the United States for the purpose of penetrating United States Government communications.

 

In 2015, I warned Maduro that allowing Russian intelligence to build and run a secret listening post on La Orchila Island would one day invite American bombs. He ignored me.

 

For twenty years, the Venezuelan regime sent spies into your country—many are still there, some disguised as members of the Venezuelan opposition. Cuban intelligence showed me their networks inside your naval bases on the East Coast. They bragged about having sent thousands of spies over decades, some now career politicians. [Blog Editor: There might not be a Senator list per se, BUT this indicates Latin American spies are career politicians. There is just no specificity on whether local, State or Federal politicians.]

 

U.S. diplomats and CIA officers were paid to assist Chávez and Maduro in remaining in power. These Americans acted as spies for Cuba and Venezuela, and some remain active to this day.

 

4.  Smartmatic and Your Elections

 

Smartmatic was born as an electoral tool of the Venezuelan regime but soon derived into a tool to help keep the regime stay in power forever. I know this because I placed the head of IT of the National Electoral Council (CNE) in his position, and he reported directly to me. The Smartmatic system can be altered—this is a fact. This technology was later exported abroad, including to the United States. Regime operatives maintain relationships with election officials and voting-machine companies inside your country. I do not claim that every election is stolen, but I state with certainty that elections can be rigged with the software – and has been used to do so.

 

People of the United States, make no mistake about the threat posed by allowing a narco-terrorist organization to roam freely in the Caribbean and throughout Latin America, doing everything possible to harm the American people—to finance anti-Americanism across the continent, and to facilitate the operations of other terrorist organizations and enemies of the United States within Venezuela and now within your borders.

 

The regime I served is not merely hostile—it is at war with you, using drugs, gangs, espionage, and even your own democratic processes as weapons. President Trump’s policies against the Maduro criminal regime are not just justified, but necessary and proportionate to the threat. He may even be underestimating what the regime is prepared to do to hold onto power. They have contingency plans for every extreme scenario to ensure they never relinquish control. [Blog Editor: Coming to America with Dem-Marxist rigged elections.]

 

I absolutely support President Trump’s policy towards Venezuela, because it is in self-defense and he is acting based on the truth. I remain ready to provide additional details about these matters to the United States government.

 

Hugo Carvajal Barrios

United States of America

December 2, 2025”

 

From this point, this post is already long. Below is the probably psyop Senator list probably meant to district from the actual content of the Carvajal letter to President Trump. NEVERTHELESS, the Senator List is full of Dems who have shredded the U.S. Constitution and a few RINOs who have joined the Dem-Marxists. I added some short commentary in bold text for the Republican and Independent Senators on this list.

 

AGAIN below the Telegram cross post will be the photos of the Carvajal 3-page letter from The Dallas Express from 12/3/25 which you should read before it is archived.

 

JRH 1/6/26

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The Telegram version of GMS Rogue Nation Knights Templar shared this on my Telegram SlantRight 2.0 Chat on 1/4/26 (https://t.me/slantright2chat/330):

 

BREAKING: Senate Majority Leader John Thune Implicated in Venezuela Money Laundering Kickbacks

 

Senate Majority Leader John Thune Implicated (Imgflip photo)

 

Based on General Mike Flynn X-Tweet from 1/3/26

 

BREAKING: Venezuela’s former Chief of National Intelligence Hugo Carvajal has OFFICIALLY RELEASED every U.S. Senator who is on THE VENEZUELA LIST of politicians who have been receiving MILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN KICKBACKS from the Maduro regime and Venezuelan drug trafficking organizations that make up his government in exchange for using their government positions and influence to undermine President Trump and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s ongoing war with these narcoterrorists.

 

Every one of these Senators is guilty of providing aid and comfort to THE ENEMY during a time of war and has the blood of their fellow American citizens.

 

(HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of whom die of drug overdoses every year at the hands of these criminal drug trafficking organizations that bring deadly drugs into our country) on their hands.

 

May each and every one of them be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and may their names forever live in shame for their treason.

 

Below is EVERY U.S. SENATOR ON THE VENEZUELA LIST:

 

Lisa Murkowski - R – Alaska [Blog Editor: Anti-Trump RINO]

 

Mark Kelly - D – Arizona

 

Ruben Gallego - D – Arizona

 

Alex Padilla - D – California

 

Adam Schiff - D – California

 

Michael Bennet - D – Colorado

 

John Hickenlooper - D – Colorado

 

Richard Blumenthal - D – Connecticut

 

Chris Murphy - D – Connecticut

 

Chris Coons - D – Delaware

 

Jon Ossoff - D – Georgia

 

Raphael Warnock - D – Georgia

 

Brian Schatz - D – Hawaii

 

Mazie Hirono - D – Hawaii

 

Dick Durbin - D – Illinois

 

Tammy Duckworth - D – Illinois

 

Chuck Grassley - R – Iowa [Blog Editor: Disappointing - I’ve always liked this Republican Senator]

 

Joni Ernst - R – Iowa [Blog Editor: Had a great pro-Trump beginning but potentially explains recent anti-Trump actions]

 

Mitch McConnell - R – Kentucky [Blog Editor: Anti-Trump RINO]

 

Rand Paul - R – Kentucky [Blog Editor: Disappointing – a mixed bag of Pro-Trump & Anti-Trump rhetoric I always chalked up to extreme Isolationism in his father’s tradition (Ron Paul)]

 

Bill Cassidy - R – Louisiana [Blog Editor: Being from Oklahoma, I do not know much about Cassidy. This 6/20/25 American Tribune post indicates Cassidy is a RINO who voted to convict President Trump in a 2021 Impeachment Trial.]

 

Susan Collins - R – Maine [Blog Editor: Anti-Trump RINO]

 

Angus King - I – Maine [Blog Editor: Elected as Independent but caucuses with Dem-Marxists and is a typical TDS voting Senator.]

 

Chris Van Hollen - D – Maryland

 

Angela Alsobrooks - D – Maryland

 

Elizabeth Warren - D – Massachusetts

 

Ed Markey - D – Massachusetts

 

Gary Peters - D – Michigan

 

Elissa Slotkin - D – Michigan

 

Amy Klobuchar - D – Minnesota

 

Tina Smith - D – Minnesota

 

Roger Wicker - R – Mississippi [Blog Editor: Appears to be a bit of mixed bag somewhat like Rand Paul. Yet RINO Watch has numerous posts linking to voting with the Dem-Marxist agenda. In March 2024 a Mississippi Today post shows some MS Counties rebelled against Wickers Primary reelection which he ultimately won.]

 

Deb Fischer - R – Nebraska [Blog Editor: Appears to be another mixed bag. Apparently one of her constituents on Facebook is displeased with her that lists her as a Trump backstabber. RINO Watch lists her on four 2024 posts. According to a 11/5/24 Nebraska Examiner post she barely survived reelection for a third term.]

 

Jacky Rosen - D – Nevada

 

Catherine Cortez Masto - D – Nevada

 

Jeanne Shaheen - D - New Hampshire

 

Maggie Hassan - D - New Hampshire

 

Cory Booker - D - New Jersey

 

Andy Kim - D - New Jersey

 

Martin Heinrich - D - New Mexico

 

Ben Ray Lujan - D - New Mexico

 

Chuck Schumer - D - New York

 

Kirsten Gillibrand - D - New York

 

Thom Tillis - R - North Carolina

 

James Lankford - R – Oklahoma [Blog Editor: I live in Oklahoma. Lankford has been a huge disappointment for me stabbing Trump in the back plenty in his first term. I have and will always vote against him in his Primary. Sadly Lankford won his last Primary and ONLY voted for him in General Election to keep a GOP Majority.]

 

Ron Wyden - D – Oregon

 

Jeff Merkley - D – Oregon

 

Dave McCormick - R – Pennsylvania [Blog Editor: McCormick seems to be more Establishment than RINO. McCormick is not on board with Trump and MAGA on the stolen 2020 Election. McCormick won a close 2024 election without depending on Trump.]

 

Jack Reed - D - Rhode Island

 

Sheldon Whitehouse - D - Rhode Island

 

John Thune - R - South Dakota [Blog Editor: Thune became the Senate Majority Leader in 2024. Thune is a McConnel acolyte AND rallied the Senate to certify Biden’s stolen 2020 Election. ERGO RINO.]

 

John Cornyn - R – Texas [Blog Editor: Trump calls Cornyn a RINO in 2022. TexasScoreCard.com shares Texas constituents calling Cornyn a RINO 11/19/24. The American Tribune in 6/5/25 shows pulling of Texas AG Ken Paxton leading Cornyn for GOP Primary Race in Double Digits.]

 

Bernie Sanders - I – Vermont [Blog Editor: If you don’t know it by now, Sanders is a full blown Communist who actually honeymooned in the then Soviet Union. Communist credentials downplayed by Mockingbird Media and Leftist Fact Checkers: NY Post – 2016, Investors Business Daily – 2016, The New American – 2019 & Ethics & Public Policy Center – 2020.]

 

Peter Welch - D – Vermont

 

Mark Warner - D – Virginia

 

Tim Kaine - D – Virginia

 

Patty Murray - D – Washington

 

Maria Cantwell - D – Washington

 

Jim Justice - R - West Virginia [Blog Editor: Justice is an Ex-Dem turned Republican and endorsed by Trump who won his Primary in spite of contenders labeling him a RINO. Justice won Senate seat in 2024.]

 

Tammy Baldwin - D - Wisconsin

 

What gives this credibility is it was reposted on 𝕏 by General Mike Flynn

 

+++++++++++++++++++++

Carvajal to President Trump 3-Page Letter from The Dallas Express:

 

Carvajal to Trump pg1


 

Carvajal to Trump pg2

 


Carvajal to Trump pg3


 

Sunday, January 4, 2026

More on Venezuela Operation Absolute Resolve

John R. Houk, Blog Editor

© January 4, 2026

Trump vs Handcuffed Maduro (FreeBeacon.com Photo)

 

Yesterday I posted, “21st Century Monroe Doctrine Exerted as Trump Military Arrests Maduro & Wife in Venezuela”. It was an off-the-cuff post where I also shared how the CCP-China & Putin-Russia (Maduro Allies) were impotent to do anything but whine in their tea and/or vodka.

 

Consider today a bit if update of thoughts favorable to the successful Trump-Venezuela campaign that I found out was dubbed Operation Absolute Resolve.

 

Check Out:

 

o   Trump Resolves the Maduro Problem; By Mike Watson; Washington Free Beacon; 1/3/26

 

o   The Fall of Maduro: Why It Matters to United States Security, and Could Trigger a South American Glasnost; By Jennifer Oliver O'Connell; RedState.com; 1/4/26 6:30 AM

 

AND I’m cross posting below Jonathan Turley’s thoughts on removing Maduro is more than the Narcoterrorism crimes. Narcoterrorism was the key that opened the U.S. Constitutional door, but oil and keeping the CCP out was the end game. Restoring a viable pre-Chavez Venezuelan democratic republic is the hoped for paradigm to keep the Communist Chinese out of the USA’s backdoor.

 

JRH 1/4/26

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Operation Absolute Resolve: Why Trump Went Off Script and Why it Will Not Matter

President Donald Trump Official Portrait 2025_cropped (JonathanTurley.org Photo)

 

By Jonathan Turley

January 4, 2026

JonathanTurley.org

 

It can fairly be said that the most precarious jobs in the world are those of a golf ball collector at a driving range, a mascot at a Chuck E. Cheese, and a Trump Administration lawyer.

 

That was evident at the press conference yesterday as President Donald Trump blew apart the carefully constructed narrative presented earlier for the seizure of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. Some of us had written that Trump had a winning legal argument by focusing on the operation as the seizure of two indicted individuals in reliance on past judicial rulings, including the decisions in the case of former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega.

 

Secretary of State Marco Rubio and General Dan Caine stayed on script and reinforced this narrative. Both repeatedly noted that this was an operation intended to bring two individuals to justice and that law enforcement personnel were part of the extraction team to place them into legal custody. Rubio was, again, particularly effective in emphasizing that Maduro was not the head of state but a criminal dictator who took control after losing democratic elections.

 

However, while noting the purpose of the capture, President Trump proceeded to declare that the United States would engage in nation-building to achieve lasting regime change. He stated that they would be running Venezuela to ensure a friendly government and the repayment of seized U.S. property dating back to the government of Hugo Chávez.

 

This city is full of self-proclaimed Trump whisperers who rarely score above random selection in their predictions. However, there are certain pronounced elements in Trump’s approach to such matters. First, he is the most transparent president in my lifetime with prolonged (at times excruciatingly long) press conferences and a brutal frankness about his motivations. Second, he is unabashedly and undeniably transactional in most of his dealings. He is not ashamed to state what he wants the country to get out of the deal.

 

In Venezuela, he wants a stable partner, and he wants oil.

 

Chávez and Maduro had implemented moronic socialist policies that reduced one of the most prosperous nations to an economic basket case. They brought in Cuban security thugs to help keep the population under repressive conditions, as a third fled to the United States and other countries.

 

After an extraordinary operation to capture Maduro, Trump was faced with socialist Maduro allies on every level of the government. He is not willing to allow those same regressive elements to reassert themselves.

 

The problem is that, if the purpose was regime change, this attack was an act of war, which is why Rubio struggled to bring the presser back to the law enforcement purpose. I have long criticized the erosion of the war declaration powers of Congress, including my representation of members of Congress in opposition to Obama’s Libyan war effort.

 

The fact, however, is that we lost that case. Trump knows that. Courts have routinely dismissed challenges to undeclared military offensives against other nations. In fairness to Trump, most Democrats were as quiet as church mice when Obama and Hillary Clinton attacked Libya’s capital and military sites to achieve regime change without any authorization from Congress. They were also silent when Obama vaporized an American under this “kill list” policy without even a criminal charge. So please spare me the outrage now.

 

My strong preferences for congressional authorization and consultation are immaterial. The question I am asked as a legal analyst is whether this operation would be viewed as lawful. The answer remains yes.

 

The courts have previously upheld the authority of presidents to seize individuals abroad, including the purported heads of state. This case is actually stronger in many respects than the one involving Noriega. Maduro will now make the same failed arguments that Noriega raised. He should lose those challenges under existing precedent. If courts apply the same standards to Trump (which is often an uncertain proposition), Trump will win on the right to seize Maduro and bring him to justice.

 

But then, how about the other rationales rattled off at Mar-A-Lago? In my view, it will not matter. Here is why.

 

The immediate purpose and result of the operation was to capture Maduro and to bring him to face his indictment in New York. That is Noriega 2.0. The Administration put him into custody at the time of extraction with law enforcement personnel and handed him over to the Justice Department for prosecution.

 

The Trump Administration can then argue that it had to deal with the aftermath of that operation and would not simply leave the country without a leader or stable government. Trump emphasized that “We’re going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition.”

 

I still do not like the import of those statements. Venezuelans must be in charge of their own country and our role, if any, must be to help them establish a democratic and stable government. Trump added that “We can’t take a chance that somebody else takes over Venezuela that doesn’t have the good of the Venezuelan people in mind.”

 

The devil is in the details. Venezuelans must decide who has their best interests in mind, not the United States.

 

However, returning to the legal elements, I do not see how a court could free Maduro simply because it disapproves of nation-building. Presidents have engaged in such policies for years. The aftermath of the operation is distinct from its immediate purpose. Trump can argue that, absent countervailing action from Congress, he has the authority under Article II of the Constitution to lay the foundation for a constitutional and economic revival in Venezuela.

 

He will leave it to his lawyers to make that case. It is not the case that some of us preferred, but it is the case that he wants to be made. He is not someone who can be scripted. It is his script and he is still likely to prevail in holding Maduro and his wife for trial.

 

N.B.: This column appeared on Fox.com

 

Jonathan Turley HOMEPAGE