Trump confirms authorizing CIA activity in Venezuela

President Donald Trump confirmed that he authorized the CIA to take action in Venezuela, though the scope and nature of those operations remain undisclosed.

“I authorized for two things really,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Wednesday when asked about reports of new CIA authority in Venezuela. “Number one, they have emptied their prisons into the United States of America… and the other thing, we have a lot of drugs coming in from Venezuela.”

Trump also confirmed that U.S. anti-cartel operations will expand to land following recent strikes on alleged drug-trafficking vessels in the Caribbean. “A lot of the Venezuelan drugs come in through the sea, but we are going to stop them by land also,” he said.

His comments came after The New York Times reported that the Trump administration had secretly granted the CIA new authority to conduct covert operations in Venezuela, including potential lethal actions against the government of Nicolás Maduro or its allies.

The report said the authorization would allow the agency to act independently or alongside the U.S. military, which currently has about 10,000 troops in the region and several warships stationed in the Caribbean.

The U.S. strikes in the Caribbean have killed at least 25 people since early September. The most recent operation, confirmed Tuesday, destroyed a vessel off Venezuela’s coast, killing six men described by Trump as “narcoterrorists.”

Trump has repeatedly linked the vessels to Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua network, which the U.S. has designated as a foreign terrorist organization with ties to Nicolás Maduro’s government.