NYT and WaPo Knew About Trump’s Venezuela Raid in Advance — Here’s Why They Didn’t Report It Right Away

(Matias Delacroix/Molly Riley/AP photos)

The New York Times and the Washington Post learned of the Trump administration’s bold, overnight operation to strike Venezuela shortly before it happened, but refrained from reporting on it right away, according to a Saturday night report.

Semafor’s Max Tani and Shelby Talcott reported that both papers declined to put out a story right away for the safety of American troops:

The decisions in the New York and Washington newsrooms to maintain official secrecy is in keeping with longstanding American journalistic traditions — even at a moment of unprecedented mutual hostility between the American president and a legacy media that continues to dominate national security reporting. And it offers a rare glimpse at a thread of contact and even cooperation over some of the highest-stakes American national security issues.

The overnight attack in Caracas, ordered by President Donald Trump, led to the capture of Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro, who was subsequently transported to New York to face federal charges of narco-terrorism conspiracy, weapons charges, and cocaine-importation conspiracy.

Times journalist Mariana Martinez later reported that at least 40 “military personnel and civilians” were killed in the attack, based on a “senior Venezuelan official who spoke on condition of anonymity.” The figure was based on “preliminary reports.”

Trump told reporters on Saturday that the U.S. would “run” Venezuela for the time being, adding that the U.S. would “get the oil flowing the way it should be” because America had “built that whole industry there.”