Trump gives CIA permission for ‘covert’ action in Venezuela as president says military ‘looking at land’ strikes

Donald Trump’s administration has authorized the CIA to covertly operate inside Venezuela, marking a significant escalation of an aggressive U.S. military campaign against Nicolas Maduro’s regime.

The authorization reportedly grants the CIA permission to take “covert action” against Maduro and his government, either unilaterally or as part of a larger military operation.

Trump told reporters at the White House Wednesday that he “authorized” CIA operations because Venezuela “emptied their prisons into the United States of America” and flooded the country with drugs.

Last month, the administration declared the United States is formally engaged in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels that the president has labeled “unlawful combatants,” according to a confidential notice to members of Congress.

Trump said defense officials are now “looking at land” strikes.

The latest action follows another U.S. airstrike that destroyed a boat off Venezuela’s coast this week, which the president and administration officials claim targeted drug traffickers. The administration has directed five strikes in recent weeks, killing at least 27 people, in a bombing campaign that critics argue amounts to illegal extrajudicial killings.

Trump did not explicitly rule out targeting Maduro directly, dismissing a question about Venezuela’s elected leader as “ridiculous.”

“I don’t want to answer a question like that,” he said Wednesday.

This is a developing story