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Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump con­firmed Wednes­day that he has au­tho­rized the CIA to con­duct covert op­er­a­tions in­side Venezuela and said he was weigh­ing car­ry­ing out land op­er­a­tions on the coun­try.

The ac­knowl­edge­ment of covert ac­tion in Venezuela by the U.S. spy agency comes af­ter the U.S. mil­i­tary in re­cent weeks has car­ried out a se­ries of dead­ly strikes against al­leged drug-smug­gling boats in the Caribbean. U.S. forces have de­stroyed at least five boats since ear­ly Sep­tem­ber, killing 27 peo­ple, and four of those ves­sels orig­i­nat­ed from Venezuela.

Asked dur­ing an event in the Oval Of­fice on Wednes­day why he had au­tho­rized the CIA to take ac­tion in Venezuela, Trump af­firmed he had made the move.