Leaked classified DOJ memo claims Trump immune to all laws in capturing Maduro

U.S. President Donald Trump reacts as he and Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney (not pictured) meet in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., October 7, 2025. REUTERS Evelyn Hockstein

CNN reports that a new classified Justice Department legal opinion argues that President Donald Trump was not limited by domestic or international law when he invaded Venezuela to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

The memo argues that Trump has constitutional authority as commander-in-chief to circumvent domestic law, and that he is not constrained by international law when it comes to carrying out law enforcement operations overseas, according to sources who have read the memo.

“The Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) opinion, which is between 20-30 pages, was provided to lawmakers on Tuesday,” sources told CNN. “It builds on a 1989 legal opinion authored by William Barr, who was at the time the head of the OLC and later served as attorney general in Trump’s first term.”

Barr’s old memo argued that a president had “inherent constitutional authority” to order the FBI to take people into custody in foreign countries, even if it violated international law. The new opinion argues that Trump can only be constrained by domestic laws such as the Constitution and the War Powers Act when he ordered Maduro captured without Congressional approval.

The opinion argues that Trump did not need to seek Congressional authorization because the invasion and capture “did not rise to the level of war in the constitutional sense and therefore did not require prior authorization by Congress.”

“President Trump is committed to enforcing United States law, and the successful rendition of Nicolas Maduro to the United States to answer for his lifetime of crimes was lawful,” a White House official told CNN when asked about the OLC memo. “This was an administration-wide effort to arrest the head of a major narco-trafficking foreign terrorist organization, who has long been a fugitive of American justice. The Department of Justice routinely executes federal arrest warrants abroad.”

CNN reports Democratic lawmakers counter that removing the head of state of a country by military force does constitute an act of war.

Harper's Magazine Contributing Editor Scott Horton compared the opinion to similar memo's giving U.S president's the power to conduct torture and other seeming affronts to the U.S. Constitution.

"The Son-of-Torture-Memo Memo: A new classified legal opinion produced by Trump's DOJ argues he was NOT constrained by domestic or international law when approving the US operation to capture Venezuelan leader Nicholas Maduro," Horton posted on BlueSky.

See the CNN report at this link.

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