A senior administration official told Newsweek that the drug trade 'can contribute to the spread of the virus,' but a senior Pentagon official said the recent mission 'has nothing to do with the virus.'
President Donald Trump's plan for cracking down on drug traffickers near Venezuela in an apparent attempt to stop the spread of the coronavirus was a mission developed months ago to pressure President Nicolás Maduro and had nothing to do with mitigating the disease, senior U.S. officials toldWednesday's announcement, they said, was instead a move to deflect criticism about the administration's mishandling of the outbreak at home.
By Friday, the White House shifted its messaging. Rather than saying the mission was intended to stop traffickers from exploiting the pandemic, an official linked it to stopping the proliferation of the disease. Maduro has been targeted by Washington hardliners seeking to oust left-leaning Latin American leaders, and the operation is the latest escalation in the Trump administration's maximum pressure campaign against him. The Justice Department
"The premise of the operation is a surge against drug trafficking—but when have you ever heard of using that type of force for drugs?" the official said toCritics questioned the timing of the announcement and whether it was a proper use of federal resources when the country was scrambling to cope with the disastrous effects the coronavirus was having on human lives and the economy.
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