I joined CNN AC360 tonight, alongside Adam Kinzinger and Spider Marks, to discuss the President’s apparent acknowledgment today of a Presidential Finding for CIA to conduct lethal covert action inside Venezuela. A couple of points. First, oopps…or shhhhhh…covert operations are supposed to be, well, covert (definition: not openly acknowledged or displayed). Enough said.

Second, these activities beg a fundamental question: why? The rationale is that we need to stop drugs from flooding into the US. But Venezuela isn’t a major source of drugs; @13% of cocaine transits Venezuela, and pretty much 0% of fentanyl. (Let me also provide some correct data about deaths, @82,000/year, not 300,000, from drugs, with 48,000 of that from fentanyl, and probably none of those from Venezuela).

If this is about stopping illegal drug flows, then you have to go after the Mexican cartels. So is this about drugs, or is it about trying to precipitate regime change in Venezuela? There are way too many US military assets for the drug trade through that area, but not enough for an invasion. CIA operations do not require (or desire) that many military assets as backup or facilitators for limited operations against drug facilities/cartels inside Venezuela.

I doubt we are at the point of the US directly attacking Maduro. My guess is that this is more about creating conditions for forces inside Venezuela to take action against him or helping him see the light and step down. This doesn’t seem all that likely to me right now, but one never knows. And this doesn’t seem like a terrible thing to try. But again, we just don’t know if it will end there.

I’m also all for going after drug traffickers, if this is done according to our laws and there is certainty that the targets are drug traffickers. These are bad people who are bringing harm to law-abiding citizens and destabilizing governments and institutions throughout the region.
But clearly, what is not happening is Congressional oversight. We can’t necessarily have an open public conversation about some aspects that need to be kept secret, although I think we deserve a more organized communication than one-off remarks in the Oval Office. In the 1970s, the Church Commission created reforms, including oversight committees, because President Nixon was using the Intelligence Community to spy on Americans, and he and past Presidents used the CIA for operations that went beyond what was seen as acceptable to the American people (like political assassinations, which have been banned since Reagan). Our oversight committees and the top 8 leaders of the House and Senate (Gang of 8) are cleared for classified conversations with the Administration on behalf of the American people. Clearly, this isn’t happening now. That is a mistake for all concerned.