By George Lehman
Boston University News Service
After Venezuelan President Nicholás Maduro was captured following a U.S. strike in Venezuela, Massachusetts Congress members are raising concerns about the constitutionality of the president’s military action.
In a post to Truth Social early Saturday morning, President Donald Trump announced the U.S. had “successfully carried out a large scale strike against Venezuela and its leader, President Nicolas Maduro, who has been, along with his wife, captured and flown out of the Country.”
“The Trump administration is lying to Congress and ignoring our constitutionally required approval for military action. This is what dictators do,” Sen. Ed Markey, D-M.A., wrote on X. “This war is not just unjustified—it is unauthorized.”
“Trump’s bombing of Venezuela, kidnapping of Maduro & attempt to run the country are brazen violations of our Constitution & int’l law,” Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-M.A wrote in a post to X. “Congress must stop this endless war & hold Trump accountable.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-M.A., questioned the potential impact the president’s “dangerous military adventurism overseas” could have for U.S. foreign policy in the future.
“President Trump’s unilateral military action to attack another country and seize Maduro — no matter how terrible a dictator he is — is unconstitutional and threatens to drag the U.S. into further conflicts in the region,” Warren wrote on X. “What does it mean that the U.S. will ‘run’ Venezuela, and what will Trump do next around the world?”
Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flories, have been indicted for Narco-Terrorism Conspiracy, among other charges, in the Southern District of New York, according to an X post from U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi.
Bondi also posted to X the unsealed indictment that alleges Maduro allowed “cocaine-fueled corruption to flourish for his own benefit, for the benefit of members of his ruling regime, and for the benefit of his family members.”
“All Venezuelan military capacities were rendered perilous as the men and women of our military working with U.S. law enforcement successfully captured Maduro in the dead of night,” Trump said during a press conference at Mar-a-Lago on Saturday.
“As everyone knows, the oil business in Venezuela has been a bust, a total bust for a long period of time,” Trump said. “We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country.”
“And we are ready to stage a second and much larger attack if we need to do so,” the president added.
