By Aaron Blake, CNN
Photo: CNN/SUPPLIED
Analysis - On 2 November, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles told Vanity Fair that land strikes in Venezuela would require the approval of Congress. She said that if Trump "were to authorise some activity on land, then it's war, then [we'd need] Congress".
Days later, Trump administration officials privately told members of Congress much the same thing - that they lacked the legal justification to support attacks against any land targets in Venezuela.
Just two months later, though, the Trump administration has done what it previously indicated it couldn't.
It launched what Trump called a "large scale strike against Venezuela" and captured its president, NicolΓ‘s Maduro, to face charges. And it launched this regime change effort without the approval of Congress.
(Trump in November claimed he didn't need congressional authorisation for land action, but it clearly wasn't the consensus view in the administration.)
Photo: CNN/SUPPLIED
It appears the mission is, for now, limited to removing Maduro. But as Trump noted, it did involve striking inside the country - the same circumstance some in the adm
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