House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) Monday insisted that Congress didn’t need to know about the military operation to oust Venezuela‘s president.
Johnson spoke to the press in Washington, D.C., just hours after Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were arraigned in Manhattan, New York City.
“It’s an operation that did not require prior consent of Congress, prior authorization of Congress — it required notification of Congress. It’s well within Article II [of the Constitution],” Johnson said. “I know as many details as I can know before going to the skiff, for the classified briefing, but I spoke with the president of the United States, the secretary of state, the secretary of defense within hours of the operation commencing. The first call was from Marco Rubio at about 4 a.m., so they’ve done everything that they were supposed to do, this was an appropriate action, and we’ll get a lot more detail inside.”
He argued that the Trump administration had met its requirements for the capture of Maduro, despite criticism from fellow lawmakers.
“All the administration officials have been talking to Senate and House members on a constant basis since this happened, and this is a big part of their obligation there. We’ll have a further briefing for all members of Congress by sometime this week,” Johnson added.
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