After 10:30 p.m. on January 2, 2026, Donald Trump was at Mar-a-Lago when he received an anticipated phone call from his aides. For months, Trump had been saber-rattling against Venezuela, amassing US warships off the coast, illegally seizing Venezuelan oil tankers, carrying out extrajudicial executions of purported drug traffickers on the high seas, and even carrying out a drone strike within Venezuelan territory.
Trump had also publicly announced he authorized the CIA to engage in covert action in the country. Since August, the CIA had been tracking the movements of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro. And earlier that month, Trump had decided they would use the US military to abduct the sovereign head of state. The only question was when. Weather conditions delayed the rendition. But that night, Trump gave the go-ahead.
US Delta Forces, an elite US Special Forces unit that is part of the Joint Special Operations Command, invaded Venezuela to kidnap its leader under the pretext of arresting him to stand trial in New York City for highly questionable charges. The United States began its aggression with a cyberattack, cutting power to parts of Venezuela. The invasion also involved 150 aircraft, including both bombers and drones. When bombing the country, the United States not only took out Venezuela’s air defense but also struck a civilian residence, murdering Rosa Gonzalez, an eighty-year-old woman.
According to reporting by Semafor, both the New York Times and the Washington Post knew about the raid in advance, something the US Congress did not. Both papers opted not to publish information about the impending act of aggression, a move Semafor described as “keeping with long-standing American journalistic traditions.” But not every journalist was so amicable to the US government’s acts of war.
After the raid, investigative reporter Seth Harp posted to X, “This is the commander of Delta Force, whose men just invaded a sovereign country, killed a…
Auteur: Chip Gibbons
