Lawmakers from both parties debriefed on classified details of the capture of Nicolas Maduro say the daring U.S. operation was impressive, but that the administration owes Americans a fuller explanation for the raid.
Sen. Kevin Cramer, a North Dakota Republican who also sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee, sees declassifying both the legal justification from the administration and at least some of the operational details as fair requests.
“In this particular case, the tactics and things may never be completely declassified,” Mr. Cramer said. “But, in general, I do think that there can be some declassification.”
The lack of information provided to Congress ahead of the raid inside Venezuela, along with its highly classified nature, have kept much of the legal discussion behind closed doors.
Briefings from the Trump administration’s top Cabinet officials have been held under a top secret classification and even the administration’s arguments for why the operation is legal are considered sensitive and classified information.
The briefings to Congress have all taken place in a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, a place constructed specifically to discuss classified information and generally known as a SCIF.
“It’s time to get this out of the SCIF and put it before the public,” Sen. Tim Kaine, Virginia Democrat, told The Washington Times after a wider classified briefing to Congress on Wednesday.
Mr. Kaine, who also sits on the Senate Armed Services as well as the Foreign Relations Committees, wants to see as much of the operation and legal justification shown to the public as possible.
“We are four months into a war where more than 200 people have been killed and U.S troops have been injured and 20% of our Navy is arrayed around Venezuela,” he said. “Get it in public hearings, where senators can ask questions and the American public can learn what the hell is going on.”
Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle applauded the actions of service members, saying that the operation was conducted “magnificently,” “swiftly,” and with the utmost professionalism.
Democrats say how much Congress was left in the dark before the operation ran counter to their oversight responsibilities, motivating the request to declassify much of the material.
But many Republicans are comfortable with their level of involvement leading up to the raid.
“Frankly, the more I learn about it, the more fine I am with it,” Mr. Cramer told The Times. “The exquisiteness of it requires such a small, small circle of knowledge.”
Helicopters inserted a team of Delta Force commandos and specially trained law enforcement agents from the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team embedded with the operators to remove Mr. Maduro and his wife.
Seven service members were wounded in the operation and one may have permanent life altering injuries.
Additional covert operations conducted by both the military and intelligence communities on the ground in Venezuela started as far back as September, according to one source familiar with the operation.
Many of the broad strokes of the operation are already public, with posts on social media showing destroyed military targets, helicopters flying through Caracas, Venezuela and the moments after Mr. Maduro and his wife were captured.
“There’s enough on Twitter and social media to understand how operations like this go down,” Sen. Tim Sheehy, Montana Republican, told The Times. “It’s a huge effort to coordinate something like this.”
Mr. Sheehy said it was an “extremely high risk” operation, “especially to penetrate foreign airspace.”
The operation followed what Mr. Sheehy, who himself served as a Navy SEAL before becoming a senator, described as a decades-long precedent of military special operations, intelligence and law enforcement coordination.
“Specially trained agents from the DEA or the FBI embedded with the special operations teams so that we could go in and do the smash, bang, shoot’em up and then we could transition that individual to law enforcement custody,” he said. “We’ve been doing it for a long time and it’s a proven model, it’s a legal model, and obviously it works.”
In this case, the nature of the operation and the public videos and pictures online have made it as much a spectacle as a military achievement, even for lawmakers with access to more material.
“This one’s a movie script,” Mr. Cramer said.
• John T. Seward can be reached at jseward@washingtontimes.com.
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