‘Democracy Dies in Darkness’: The Washington Post and NYT allegedly knew about U.S. plan to capture Maduro but Congress didn’t
As if the bipartisan headache of being left in the dark wasn’t enough already.
Our government is officially held together by scotch tape and sheer audacity. According to a bombshell report, The New York Times and The Washington Post knew about the secret U.S. raid on Venezuela before the first bomb dropped. But guess who had no idea? The U.S. Congress.
On January 3, the Trump administration was busy executing a secret military operation to kidnap the Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Meanwhile, the two biggest media “watchdogs” were sitting on the news, allegedly to “protect U.S. troops”. It’s a touching sentiment, really, if you ignore one minor detail. Newsrooms were clued in on a secret operation, but the actual elected representatives in Congress were kept in the dark. How democratic.
The irony of the situation is thick. For years, The Washington Post has lectured us with its self-important “Democracy Dies in Darkness” slogan. Yet, they were perfectly comfortable dimming the lights when it suits the administration’s tactical vibe. According to Semafor, senior editors at both newspapers were briefed on “sensitive operational details” ahead of the mission.
Outrageously, that cozy little circle of trust excluded the people who are actually supposed to authorize military actions. Or, at the very least, know about such high-stakes international military operations beforehand.
The Trump administration is already giving excuses to Congress
Unsurprisingly, the reaction from Capitol Hill has been a mix of blind-sided fury and lackluster excuses from the administration. Democrats are slamming the Trump administration for “blatantly lying” to Congress, demanding briefings that should have happened weeks ago. But Trump treats the War Powers Act like a nuisance and the UN Charter like scrap paper. He has also already come up with ultimate “dog ate my homework” excuses for bypassing the Congress.
During a press conference on Saturday, Trump and Rubio explicitly suggested that congressional notification would have “endangered the operation.” He also bluntly claimed that “Congress has a tendency to leak” (via Straits Times). His justification essentially frames the U.S. Constitution as a security risk, suggesting that the only way to save democracy is to ignore it entirely. It also implies that news editors have more security clearance than the Senate.
On the other hand, if the media’s job is to hold power to account, they’ve decided to take a sabbatical. While it was good riddance to hold off the news until after the operation was over, it still signals a collapse of democratic structure. The New York Times and The Washington Post will undoubtedly pat themselves on the back for their “patriotism.” But the rest of us are left wondering how we ended up in a country where the media knows more about the next war than our elected representatives.
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