CNN military analyst and retired U.S. Air Force Col. Cedric Leighton on Saturday questioned Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s justification of the nighttime operation to bomb Venezuela and capture its leader, Nicolas Maduro.
Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) cited Rubio’s reasoning on social media.
“He informed me that Nicolás Maduro has been arrested by U.S. personnel to stand trial on criminal charges in the United States, and that the kinetic action we saw tonight was deployed to protect and defend those executing the arrest warrant,” Lee wrote Saturday, adding that the nighttime operation “likely falls” within the president’s authority under Article II of the Constitution to protect U.S. personnel from an attack.
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Leighton evaluated that assertion on “CNN This Morning Weekend.”
“Well, it’s a bit of a stretch, in terms of combining a law enforcement action with what actually is a military action,” he said. “So the actual removal of a head of state has all kinds of ramifications from an international law perspective and certainly from a military perspective.”
Trump announced at 4:21 a.m. on his Truth Social platform that Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, had been captured and flown to the U.S. to face justice. News of the nighttime operation in Venezuela’s capital of Caracas shocked numerous world leaders, many of whom decried the move.
The Trump administration has accused Maduro of trafficking narcotics such as fentanyl into the U.S. It has launched deadly strikes on alleged drug smugglers off the country’s coast since September, killing scores of people without due process or congressional approval.
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The administration has also seized multiple Venezuelan oil tankers, raising suspicions from Democratic lawmakers, pundits and advocates for international law about the true motivation behind the conflict — as Venezuela holds the world’s largest oil reserves.
When asked last month if this can still be justified as a crusade against drug trafficking, Trump said, “Well, it’s about a lot of things.” He elaborated in a “Fox & Friends” interview hours after Saturday’s strike.