Rubio Says U.S. Troops Near Venezuela Are ‘Leverage’ for Trump: Live Updates

Smoke rising from Fuerte Tiuna, a military complex in Caracas, on Saturday morning. U.S. troops captured President Nicolás Maduro in a raid of a safe house.

The United States’ seizure of President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela and President Trump’s declaration that the United States will “run the country” for now raise a host of extraordinary legal issues at the intersection of international law and presidential power.

The Trump administration has not yet publicly detailed its legal reasoning. But earlier operations and comments by Marco Rubio, the secretary of state and President Trump’s national security adviser, offer potential insights.

In 1989, when the Bush administration invaded Panama to capture its strongman leader, Manuel Noriega, it styled the operation as military support for law enforcement. Like Mr. Maduro, Noriega had been indicted in the United States for drug trafficking. The Pentagon similarly described the Maduro operation as “support” for the Justice Department.

Here is a closer look.

Is it legal for the U.S. to ‘run’ Venezuela?

Shortly after declaring that United States would “run the country” at a news conference, Mr. Trump seemed to suggest that his plan was to pressure Mr. Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, to simply obey him.

Asked in an interview with The New York Post if U.S. troops would be deployed to help run Venezuela, Mr. Trump replied, “No, if Maduro’s vice president — if the vice president does what we want, we won’t have to do that.” (He also suggested to reporters that he was “not afraid of boots on the ground,” particularly regarding the country’s oil.)

That raises the question of how the U.S.