itstargetnews
US Senate Republicans on Wednesday blocked a resolution that would have barred US President Donald Trump from further military action in Venezuela without congressional approval, after the Republican president pressured party members who supported it.
The the votes were 51-50 for a Republican point of order to reject the war powers resolution, as only three of Trump’s Republicans voted with every Democrat to proceed, and Vice President JD Vance came to the Capitol to break the deadlock.
Opponents argued the resolution should not move forward because the U.S. currently has no troops on the ground in Venezuela, after U.S. forces entered Caracas on Jan. 3 and captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
“We are not conducting military operations there right now,” Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota said as he opened the Senate on Wednesday.
“Democrats accepted this bill because their anti-Trump hysteria knows no bounds.”
The Trump administration maintains that Maduro’s capture was a judicial operation to bring him to trial in the US on drug charges, not a military operation.
Opponents reject the rationale
Proponents of the war powers resolution disagreed, noting that a large flotilla of U.S. ships is blockading Venezuela and has spent months shooting at ships in the southern Caribbean and the Pacific. Trump also threatened further military action.
US President Donald Trump is appealing to top oil executives to quickly launch the development of Venezuela’s vast oil reserves. But few seem eager to jump in with both feet in the days since US forces captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
“The argument that the campaign in Venezuela is not direct hostilities within the meaning of the war powers resolution violates every reasonable meaning of that term,” Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, the resolution’s lead sponsor, said in a speech before the vote.
The close vote reflects concerns in Congress, including some Republicans, about Trump’s foreign policy and growing support for the argument that Congress, not the president, should have the authority to send U.S. troops to war, as outlined in the U.S. Constitution.
Trump recently said the US would govern Venezuela for years, told Iranians protesting against their government that “help is on the way” and threatened military action to seize Greenland, a territory of NATO ally Denmark.
Administration lawyers blessed Maduro’s operation
Days before the U.S. military operation that removed Maduro from power, Trump administration lawyers blessed the move, saying it “will not rise to the level of war in the constitutional sense” and would serve “important national interests,” according to a legal opinion that articulates a sharp view of presidential power.
A heavily redacted version of the opinion by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, released this week, shed new light on how the administration came to the conclusion that it was legally permissible to remove Maduro.
The Dec. 23 opinion was prepared for the White House National Security Council’s legal counsel. The 22-page document was drafted by attorneys in the Office of the Legal Counsel, which has historically been called upon to resolve tricky legal issues for the executive branch.
In this case, the opinion grapples with whether Trump can order the military to help police remove Maduro from power so he can face prosecution in the United States.
The answer, says the opinion, was yes. She cited five separate reasons, including what she said were “serious” charges against Maduro contained in the drug-trafficking conspiracy indictment; “numerous other highly dangerous activities” in which he and his associates were allegedly involved; the possible need for military force to protect civilians in Venezuela and abroad from Venezuela; and the possibility that US personnel will encounter “armed resistance” protecting Maduro.
“Here we are told to assume that there are as many as 200 armed guards in a literal fortress sent from another country and armed by another country solely to ensure Maduro’s safety,” the opinion said. “This level of expected armed resistance supports the need for military forces to provide security for law enforcement personnel conducting the surrender.”
While the opinion identified significant risks in the military operation, depending in part on Maduro’s exact position at the time of the action, administration lawyers said it was unlikely to lead to an all-out war that would require congressional approval.
Pressure from Trump
Wednesday’s vote showed Trump’s influence over his party.
It came less than a week after the Senate voted to advance the resolution on Jan. 8. In that vote, five Republicans joined every Democrat in favor of progress, a rare rebuke from a party leader in the Republican-majority House.
Trump responded furiously, saying the five Republicans should never be elected to office again. The five were Rand Paul from Kentucky, Susan Collins from Maine, Josh Hawley from Missouri, Lisa Murkowski from Alaska and Todd Young from Indiana. Trump’s party has a 53-47 majority in the Senate.
Trump, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other administration officials have launched an intense campaign to urge Republicans to reverse their positions and oppose the resolution, calling on them repeatedly.
Hawley and Young did so on Wednesday.
In a statementYoung said he had received assurances from “senior national security officials” that there were no US troops in Venezuela. “I have also received a commitment that if President Trump decides that US forces are needed in major military operations in Venezuela, the administration will go to Congress in advance to seek force authorization,” he said.
Even if it passed the Senate, to become law, the measure would have to pass the Republican-led House of Representatives and garner a two-thirds majority in both the House and Senate to survive an expected Trump veto.
Trump’s Republicans blocked two previous attempts to advance similar resolutions in the Senate last year.
After Maduro’s arrest, some lawmakers, including Democrats publicly and some Republicans behind the scenes, accused the administration of misleading Congress by insisting they had no plans to force Venezuela to change its government.
In the past few days, Trump posted a meme on the Internet depicting him as the “acting president of Venezuela” and he told the New York Times that the involvement of the US in the South American country will last for years.
