Official White House Photo by Molly Riley via Wikimedia Commons
Donald Trump, John Ratcliff and Marco Rubio - January 2026
President Donald Trump monitors U.S. military operations in Venezuela, from Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida, with CIA Director John Ratcliffe (left) and Secretary of State Marco Rubio (right) on Saturday, January 3, 2026.
President Donald Trump is facing renewed calls for impeachment over his unprecedented attack on Venezuela and failure to notify Congress in advance, but while aboard Air Force One Sunday night he made a startling admission about which group he did inform ahead of the operation.
Trump admitted that he had told oil companies of the operation in advance, and championed them for wanting to “go in” to Venezuela and “do a great job” with securing Venezuela’s oil reserves, the single-largest proven oil reserves on earth.
With Trump having not only not informed Congress of the attack beforehand, including the “Gang of Eight” congressional leaders who are traditionally told of such operations, critics, such as Democratic congressional candidate Fred Wellman, were left floored by the admission.
“I can’t begin to tell you how insane this is,” Wellman, who also hosts the “On Democracy” podcast, wrote Sunday night in a social media post on X to his more than 356,000 followers.
“He did not inform Congress but he’s saying he informed the oil companies. Keep in mind who he means. The billionaire mega donor that just got control of Citgo. Our service members were used directly to move the interests of Trump’s donors.”
Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-AZ) was also shocked by Trump’s startling admission, calling it an indication that his administration now closely resembles an “authoritarian regime.”
“The oil companies were informed about an act of war before it happened, Congress was not,” Ansari wrote Sunday in a social media post on X. “That, my friends, is what an authoritarian regime run by oligarchs looks like.”
Trump has already made clear that he anticipates the United States benefitting economically from having unchallenged access to Venezuela's vast oil reserves, and the stock values of American oil companies have already surged in the wake of the U.S. attack and subsequent takeover of Venezuela.
The Texas-based oil giant Chevron—the lone American oil company to currently have a presence in Venezuela—has already vowed to work with the Trump administration in its hostile takeover of the South American nation, and cheered what it hoped would be a “peaceful” transfer of power facilitated by the United States.
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