Trump’s attack on Venezuela without alerting Congress tests limits of executive power

Trump’s audacious arrest of Maduro marks a conspicuous break with convention, even as previously observed by the president himself

Nothing speaks more eloquently of the disempowering of the US Congress under Donald Trump’s second presidency than the brazenly audacious detention of Venezuela’s leader, Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia.

Far from recognizing it, Trump did not even acknowledge Congress’s right to know – keeping senior members in the dark until the operation to seize the strongman was under way.