Trump invaded Venezuela and arrested its president. Is that legal?

On November 2, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles told Vanity Fair that congressional approval would be needed for land strikes in Venezuela. She said that if Trump “authorizes any activity on the ground, which is war, then (we) need Congress.”

A few days later, Trump administration officials privately told members of Congress the same thing — they had no legal justification to support strikes against any ground targets in Venezuela.

Just two months later, however, the Trump administration has indicated it will not do so first.

It led to what Trump called a “large-scale strike against Venezuela” and arrested its president, Nicolas Maduro, to face charges. And it launched this regime change effort without congressional approval.

(Trump claimed in November that he didn’t need congressional authorization for land actions, but that apparently wasn’t the consensus view in the administration.)

It seems the mission, for now, is limited to ousting Maduro. But as Trump noted, that would have involved a strike inside the country — the same situation some in the administration previously indicated required authorization that it wasn’t. CNN reported in early November that the administration was seeking a new legal opinion from the Justice Department for such strikes.

And Trump spoke repeatedly at a press conference on Saturday about not just arresting Maduro, but running Venezuela and taking its oil — comments that could certainly be understood as more than just arresting Maduro.

Legally questionable strikes inside another country — even narrowly tailored to the removal of foreign leaders — are hardly unheard of in recent American history. But even in this context, it is a remarkable one.

Changing justifications

That’s because the Trump administration has paid remarkably little attention to offering a consistent set of justifications or legal frameworks for the attacks. And it doesn’t even appear to have notified Congress ahead of time, which is usually minimal in such situations.

A full explanation of the claimed rationale has yet to be released, but early signs are characteristically confusing.

Sen. Mike Lee, Republican of Utah, said shortly after the strike that Secretary of State Marco Rubio told him the strike was necessary, in Lee’s words, “to protect and defend those executing arrest warrants” against Maduro.

“This action likely falls within the president’s inherent authority under Article II of the Constitution to protect American personnel from actual or imminent attack,” said Lee, a frequent critic of unauthorized foreign military action.

Hours later, Vice President JD Vance echoed that line.

“And a PSA for everyone saying it was ‘illegal’: Maduro has multiple convictions for narco-terrorism in the United States,” Vance said on X. “You can’t escape justice for drug trafficking in the United States because you live in a palace in Caracas.”

At a later press conference, Rubio echoed the line that the military was supporting a “law enforcement function.”

But there are many people living in other countries who are indicted in the United States; It is not normal procedure for the US government to invade foreign countries to bring them to justice.

The administration also had not previously indicated that military force could be legally used for this reason.

Initially, Trump threatened ground strikes to target drug traffickers inside Venezuela — even though Venezuela is clearly a minor player in the drug-trafficking game.

Later, the administration suggested that the strike might be necessary because Venezuela was sending bad people to the United States.

And then, after initially downplaying oil’s role in the U.S. pressure campaign against Venezuela and Maduro, Trump said he aimed to reclaim “the oil, land and other assets that they stole from us before.”

Even Hawkeyes Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina in mid-December indicated that the administration’s message lacked “clarity” and the signs were misleading enough.

“I want clarity here,” Graham said. “President Trump is saying his days are numbered. I think he needs to go. If this is the goal to get him out because he’s a threat to our country, then say. And then what? Don’t you think a lot of people want to know that?”

Although the focus was on law enforcement on Saturday, Trump said at a news conference that the United States would now participate in running Venezuela, at least temporarily. And he often spoke of its oil.

“We’re going to rebuild the oil infrastructure,” Trump added at another point: “We’re going to run the country right.”

And even if the administration offered a more coherent justification, that doesn’t mean it would be appropriate.

A controversial 1989 memo

The most recent prominent example of the use of the US military for regime change is of course the war in Iraq. That war was authorized by Congress in 2002. The broader War on Terrorism was authorized by Congress in 2001, after the 9/11 attacks.

Since then, administrations have used those rights to justify numerous military actions in the Middle East — sometimes questionably. But Venezuela is in a completely different theater.

While many compare Venezuela’s efforts to Iraq, a better comparison — and one the administration apparently wants to make — is Panama in 1989.

As in Venezuela, Panama’s then-leader, Manuel Noriega, was indicted by the U.S. for drug trafficking. And as in Venezuela, this operation was less a large-scale war than a narrowly tailored effort to remove the leader from power.

In 1980 the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel concluded that the FBI did not have the authority to arrest and abduct foreign nationals to face justice. But the George HW Bush administration’s OLC quietly reversed that in the summer of 1989.

The memo, written by William P. Barr, who would later become attorney general in the Bush administration and the first Trump administration, said the president has an “inherent constitutional authority” to order the FBI to detain people in foreign countries, even if it violates international law.

That memo was soon used to justify an operation to remove Noriega. (As it happens, Noriega was captured by Maduro on the same day: January 3, 1990.)

But that memo is still controversial today. It’s also an extraordinarily broad grant of authority, potentially allowing U.S. forces anywhere.

And the situation in Venezuela may be different in that it is a large country that may prove difficult to control with its leader in foreign custody. It also has significant oil wealth, meaning other countries may be interested in what happens there. (China called the attack “the use of force against a sovereign state”.)

In both a news conference and an interview with Fox News on Saturday morning, Trump invoked the possibility of a more military option, reinforcing that it could be more than just arresting Maduro.

It also means that questions about Trump’s legal authorities could be tested again — just as he has already tested them with legally suspect strikes on alleged drug boats and other operations in the region.

What is clear is that Trump is once again trying to test the limits of his authority as president and the tolerance of Americans for it. But this time he’s doing it on the biggest stage yet. And the story of his spread of the law is certainly not over.

Create an account at CNN.com for more CNN news and newsletters