The interim government in Venezuela has released at least four U.S. citizens who were imprisoned under President Nicolás Maduro’s regime, Fox News confirmed.

The release marks the first known release of Americans in the South American country since the U.S. military completed an operation to capture authoritarian Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who is now facing federal drug trafficking charges in New York.

‘We welcome the release of detained Americans in Venezuela,’ a State Department official said Tuesday. ‘This is an important step in the right direction by the interim authorities.’

The release of American citizens was first reported by Bloomberg.

President Donald Trump said Saturday that Venezuela had begun releasing political prisoners.

‘Venezuela has started the process, in a BIG WAY, of releasing their political prisoners,’ Trump wrote on Truth Social. ‘Thank you! I hope those prisoners will remember how lucky they got that the USA came along and did what had to be done.’

Venezuela’s interim government has reported that 116 prisoners have been released, although only about 70 have been verified by the non-governmental organization Justicia, Encuentro y Perdón, according to Bloomberg.

National Assembly President Jorge Rodríguez said prisoner releases would continue, according to the outlet.

The U.S. government issued a new security alert Saturday urging Americans in Venezuela to leave the country immediately, citing security concerns and limited ability to provide emergency assistance, the U.S. Embassy in Caracas said.

‘U.S. citizens in Venezuela should leave the country immediately,’ the embassy said in the alert.

The warning pointed to reports of armed groups operating on Venezuelan roads.

Following the military operation, Trump suggested that the U.S. would ‘run’ Venezuela for an extended period.

‘We’re going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition,’ he said.

A South Korean court heard arguments Tuesday seeking the death penalty for former President Yoon Suk Yeol, as prosecutors accused the ousted leader of orchestrating a rebellion through his controversial martial law declaration in December 2024.

Independent counsel Cho Eun-suk asked the Seoul Central District Court to impose the sentence, arguing that Yoon’s actions amounted to ‘anti-state activities’ and describing the decree as a ‘self-coup.’

Yoon, a conservative who was removed from office last spring, remains in custody while facing multiple criminal proceedings tied to the martial law episode and other controversies from his presidency. Prosecutors say the rebellion charge carries the most severe potential punishment.

Cho’s team argued in court that Yoon sought to prolong his hold on power by undermining South Korea’s constitutional system of governance.

Yoon has rejected the accusations, telling the court that the investigations into his conduct have been ‘frenzied’ and marked by ‘manipulation’ and ‘distortion.’

He has maintained that the declaration of martial law was intended to alert the public to what he viewed as the growing threat posed by the opposition Democratic Party, which used its legislative majority to block his political agenda. 

Yoon argued that the exercise of presidential emergency powers cannot be treated as rebellion under the law.

The court is expected to deliver a verdict next month. Legal experts have said a life sentence is more likely than execution, noting that South Korea has not carried out a death penalty since 1997.

Yoon is the first South Korean president who has faced a potential death penalty after leaving office since Chun Doo-hwan was sentenced to death in 1996 for various crimes. Chun’s death sentence was later commuted to life in prison, and he was subsequently pardoned and freed.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump is setting the stage for the U.S. to be involved in overseeing Venezuela for a significant period of time, after conducting strikes and capturing dictator Nicolás Maduro and labeling himself ‘acting’ president of Venezuela. 

The move marks his boldest interventionist move yet — a foreign policy approach by which one country intervenes in another state’s affairs — and follows other major military operations from the Trump administration, including strikes in Syria in December 2025 against Islamic State operatives after an ambush against U.S. troops there, and strikes in June 2025 against the Iranian nuclear sites of Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan.

Trump told The New York Times in an interview that was published Wednesday that ‘only time will tell’ how long the U.S. will be running Venezuela, but said it would be ‘much longer’ than a year. 

Additionally, Trump announced recently that Venezuela’s interim government would hand over up to 50 million barrels of oil to the U.S. and that the oil would be sold ‘immediately.’

‘We will rebuild it in a very profitable way,’ Trump told the Times. ‘We’re going to be using oil, and we’re going to be taking oil. We’re getting oil prices down, and we’re going to be giving money to Venezuela, which they desperately need.’

Likewise, Trump shared a doctored image that looked like a Wikipedia page that identified him as ‘Acting President of Venezuela’ since January 2026. 

Previous interventionist actions the U.S. has taken include launching an invasion of Afghanistan in response to the 9/11 attacks Afghanistan-based al-Qaeda conducted against the U.S., and an invasion of Iraq in 2003 that led to the toppling of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s regime. In both cases, the U.S. remained in prolonged occupations there. 

The language the Trump administration is using now focusing on illegal migration is different than what was used during the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts, which focused on democracy-building and promoting freedom, Katherine Thompson, a senior fellow in defense and foreign policy studies at the libertarian think tank the Cato Institute, told Fox News Digital. 

‘But the pathway to achieve those things, I don’t see, like, a broad differentiation from the things that we did before,’ Thompson told Fox News Digital. 

Thompson said that she doesn’t see how the Trump administration’s goals could be completed without small rotational deployments from U.S. forces to provide security, particularly in the event that the U.S. reopens its Embassy in Caracas, Venezuela. 

‘I don’t see how we’re going to have a team there without at least some small deployment of rotational forces to achieve security of our own personnel,’ Thompson said.

So far, no U.S. troops are on the ground in Venezuela, and the Senate advanced a War Powers resolution Thursday that, if passed, would bar using U.S. forces within or against Venezuela without Congress’ approval. 

When asked by Fox News Digital about whether Trump’s ‘Acting President of Venezuela’ post was shared jokingly and what it indicates about how long the U.S. will be involved in running Venezuela, White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly told Fox News Digital: ‘President Trump will be the greatest President for the American and Venezuelan people in history. Congratulations, world!’

Although Trump has blasted previous administrations for actions in the Middle East and vowed he would bring an end to ‘endless wars’ while ushering in an ‘America First’ agenda prioritizing U.S. interests, Democrats warned that the U.S. may be involving itself in another complicated conflict. 

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., claimed that the U.S. is on the path to another ‘endless war.’

‘The very thing that Donald Trump campaigned against over and over and over again was no more endless wars,’ Schumer said in an interview with ABC News Jan. 4. ‘And, right now, we’re headed right into one with no barriers, with no discussion.’ 

Trump announced on Jan. 3 that U.S. special forces conducted a ‘large-scale strike’ against Caracas, and seized Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. Both were taken to New York and appeared in a Manhattan federal court Jan. 5 on drug charges, where they each pleaded not guilty.

The raid came after months of pressure on Venezuela and more than two dozen strikes in Latin American waters against alleged drug traffickers as part of Trump’s effort to crack down on the influx of drugs into the U.S.

The Trump administration routinely stated that it did not recognize Maduro as a legitimate head of state and said he was the leader of a drug cartel. Likewise, Trump said in December 2025 he believed it would be ‘smart’ for Maduro to step down. 

The Trump administration has justified seizing Maduro as a ‘law enforcement’ operation, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio said congressional approval wasn’t necessary since the operation didn’t amount to an ‘invasion.’

However, lawmakers primarily on the left have questioned the legality of the operation in Venezuela, which was conducted without Congress’ approval.

‘This has been a profound constitutional failure,’ the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., said in a statement Jan. 3. ‘Congress — not the President — has the sole power to authorize war. Pursuing regime change without the consent of the American people is a reckless overreach and an abuse of power.’

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was subpoenaed to appear before the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday, but she’s expected to ignore the order, potentially risking criminal charges.

Hillary Clinton is scheduled to be deposed behind closed doors at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, and it appears the GOP-led committee will move forward with holding the interview in some form regardless of whether she attends.

Hillary and Bill Clinton’s lawyers sent a letter to House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., earlier this week, calling their subpoenas ‘invalid and legally unenforceable.’

But Comer previously threatened to initiate contempt of Congress proceedings against both Clintons if they skipped their January deposition dates, which were rescheduled twice prior, amid conversations with their attorneys.

Bill Clinton defied his own subpoena on Tuesday, failing to appear for a 10 a.m. closed-door deposition. 

Comer told reporters afterward that the House Oversight Committee would meet next week to advance a contempt resolution against the former president in response.

When Fox News Digital asked if the same would happen to Hillary Clinton if she failed to appear the next day, Comer said, ‘We’ll see. We’ll talk about it.’

The former first couple were two of 10 people subpoenaed by Comer as part of the panel’s investigation into Jeffrey Epstein. The subpoenas were issued following a bipartisan vote by an Oversight subcommittee panel during an unrelated hearing on illegal immigration.

Despite that, however, no Democrats appeared for Bill Clinton’s expected grilling.

‘Not a single Democrat showed up today, not a single Democrat,’ Comer told reporters. ‘It just seems like they only care about pushing Republicans. And we’ve had a former Trump Cabinet secretary, Alex Acosta, in for a grilling. We had Bill Barr, former attorney general, in for a grilling. But for whatever reason, President Clinton didn’t show up. And the Democrats on the committee don’t seem to have a problem.’

The Clintons’ attorneys criticized Comer’s leadership of the investigation in their letter, discounting the subpoenas.

‘President and Secretary Clinton have already provided the limited information they possess about Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell to the Committee,’ the lawyers said.

‘Your continued insistence that the former President and Secretary of State can be compelled to appear before the Committee under these circumstances, however, brings us toward a protracted and unnecessary legal confrontation that distracts from the principal work of the Congress with respect to this matter, which, if conducted sincerely, could help ensure the victims of Mr. Epstein and Ms. Maxwell are afforded some measure of justice for the crimes perpetrated against them, however late. But perhaps distraction is the point.’

Comer said after Bill Clinton skipped his deposition, ‘No one’s accusing Bill Clinton of any wrongdoing. We just have questions. And that’s why the Democrats voted, along with Republicans, to subpoena Bill Clinton.’

The House Oversight Committee would need to advance a contempt resolution before it’s considered by the entire chamber. If a simple majority votes to hold someone in contempt of Congress, a criminal referral is then traditionally made to the Department of Justice.

A criminal contempt of Congress charge is a misdemeanor that carries a punishment of up to one year in jail and a maximum $100,000 fine, if convicted.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., accused his ‘pro-life’ Republican colleagues of not caring about the people killed in boat strikes near Venezuela who the Trump administration, without providing evidence, claims were trafficking fentanyl.

During an appearance on ‘The Joe Rogan Experience’ released on Tuesday, Paul said GOP lawmakers ‘don’t give a s‑‑-‘ about the people who died on the vessels, blasting his colleagues for not granting the presumption of innocence.

‘I look at my colleagues who say they’re pro-life, and they value God’s inspiration in life, but they don’t give a s‑‑- about these people in the boats,’ Paul said. ‘Are they terrible people in the boats? I don’t know. They’re probably poor people in Venezuela and Colombia.’

‘I guess what I don’t feel connected to my Republican colleagues is that those lives don’t matter at all, and we just blow them up. And against all justice, and against all laws of war, all laws of just war, we have never blown up people who were shipwrecked,’ he added, referring to the administration’s reported targeting and killing of survivors of initial strikes who were clinging to wreckage.

The liberty-minded Republican said it is ‘against the military code of justice to do that.’

‘We’re doing it and everybody just says, ‘Oh, well, they’re drug dealers,” he said.

Paul criticized his fellow GOP lawmakers who have repeated the administration’s claims about the boats carrying fentanyl. He also took issue with colleagues who hold the position of, ‘Well, we’re at war with them. They’re committing war by bringing drugs into America.’

‘They’re not even coming here,’ Paul explained. ‘They’re going to these islands in the south part of the Caribbean. The cocaine — and it’s not fentanyl at all — the cocaine’s going to Europe.’

He emphasized that ‘those little boats can’t get here.’

‘No one’s even asked this common question: Those boats have these four engines on them. They’re outboard boats. You can probably go about 100 miles before you have to refuel. Two thousand miles from us, they’d have to refuel 20 times to get here,’ Paul said.

The senator accused the administration of conducting the boat strikes to create ‘a pretense and a false argument’ ahead of the operation to attack Venezuela and arrest its president, Nicolás Maduro.

‘It’s all been a pretense for arresting Maduro,’ he said. ‘So, we have to set up the predicate. We got to show you we care about drugs.’

Paul helped the Senate advance a resolution last week that would limit Trump’s ability to conduct further attacks against Venezuela after the U.S. military’s recent move to strike the country and capture Maduro, which the Kentucky Republican said amounts to war. The Upper Chamber could pass the measure later this week, although it faces an uphill battle in the House despite some support from Republicans.

‘I think bombing a capital and removing the head of state is, by all definitions, war,’ Paul told reporters before the procedural vote last week. ‘Does this mean we have carte blanche that the president can make the decision any time, anywhere, to invade a foreign country and remove people that we’ve accused of a crime?’

The lawmaker has repeatedly criticized the administration’s boat strikes on alleged narco-terrorists in recent months, often raising concerns about killing people without due process and the possibility of killing innocent people. The senator previously cited Coast Guard statistics that show a significant percentage of boats boarded on suspicion of drug trafficking are innocent.

Paul said on ‘The Joe Rogan Experience’ that he believes the administration might attack Mexico next, which Trump has signaled could be a future target.

‘They want to do that next. They want to bomb Mexico,’ Paul said.

Trump has said cartels are ‘running Mexico’ and that ‘something’s going to have to be done’ because Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum is ‘very frightened’ of the cartels.