A recently declassified legal opinion has shed light on the Trump administration's justification for the military operation that ousted Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro, revealing lawyers deemed the action would "not rise to the level of war in the constitutional sense" and served "important national interests". This perspective underscores a muscular view of presidential power.
The heavily redacted document from the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), released this week, offers new insight into how the administration concluded it was legally permissible to proceed with the stunning middle-of-the-night military operation on January 3. This action ultimately removed Maduro as Venezuela's president.
