Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Saturday sharply criticized President Trump’s decision to pursue criminal charges against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, accusing the administration of hypocrisy in light of Trump’s earlier pardon of former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who was convicted on major drug trafficking charges.
Pelosi’s remarks came hours after the U.S. launched strikes on Venezuela’s capital, Caracas, followed by the arrest of Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, by U.S. forces. The operation marked a dramatic escalation in Washington’s long-running confrontation with Venezuela’s government and immediately ignited political backlash on Capitol Hill.
“If the President grounds his actions on the basis of drug trafficking charges, it is entirely hypocritical in light of his recent pardon of former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández who was responsible for bringing more than 400 tons of cocaine in the United States in order to ‘shove the drugs right up the noses of the gringos,’” Pelosi wrote on social platform X.
She added that Hernández “was convicted of the same crime by an American jury and Trump pardoned him.”
Trump granted clemency to Hernández in November, months after the former Honduran leader was convicted of collaborating for more than a decade with drug traffickers seeking to move cocaine into the United States. At the time, Trump said Hernández was “treated very harshly and unfairly” and alleged the Biden administration had orchestrated a “setup” leading to his arrest and conviction.
According to Trump, Maduro and Flores are now being transported aboard the USS Iwo Jima to New York, where they will face prosecution. Speaking to Fox News, the president described the arrests as a major blow to what his administration characterizes as a narco-state operating in the Western Hemisphere.
Attorney General Pam Bondi confirmed that the couple were indicted on charges including narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machineguns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machineguns and destructive devices against the United States.
Pelosi, while acknowledging Venezuela’s political situation, questioned the legal and constitutional basis for the military action. She said Congress must receive immediate briefings on the strikes and on what she described as potential plans for “regime change in Venezuela, the objectives and extent of this operation, and how the Administration intends to prevent further regional fallout.”
“Venezuela is ruled by an illegitimate regime, but the Administration has not made the case that an urgent threat to America’s national security existed to justify the use of U.S. military force,” she said.
The California Democrat also condemned Trump for bypassing Congress before launching the operation, accusing him of undermining the Constitution.
“She accused the president of making it ‘no secret of his intentions to effectively abolish the Congress, and that pattern continues today with his flagrant disregard for the Article One war powers of Congress which is essential to our constitutional system of checks and balances.’”
The humanitarian impact of the strikes remains unclear. Venezuelan Defense Minister General Padrino López said civilian homes were damaged during the operation and that authorities are still assessing potential casualties, according to TeleSUR English. No official casualty figures have been released.
Trump, speaking from Mar-a-Lago, said the United States will “run” Venezuela “until such time as we can do a safe, proper, and judicious transition.” He also said Washington intends to take control of Venezuela’s oil production, arguing that “the oil business in Venezuela has been a bust, a total bust for a long period of time.”
Reaction in Congress has been sharply divided. Most Democrats accused the Trump administration of “illegally” launching the strikes without congressional authorization, while Republicans largely praised the capture of Maduro as a long-overdue move against a hostile government.
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), a frequent critic of Trump within his own party, also raised concerns about the legality of the operation in a post on X, signaling that questions over executive war powers may continue to dominate the debate in the days ahead.
