Former ethics officials file complaint after OLC memo on Venezuela operation

An Office of Legal Counsel memo justifying a recent U.S. operation in Venezuela has prompted a formal ethics complaint, multiple Freedom of Information Act requests and renewed demands for congressional oversight. A bipartisan group of former federal ethics officials and legal scholars filed the complaint and FOIA requests after the memo was released, and they asked the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility to investigate the memo’s preparation and ethical propriety.

The complaint was lodged by Norm Eisen, Richard Painter and Virginia Canter, each of whom previously served as ethics counsel in Republican and Democratic administrations. The group seeks full public disclosure of the OLC opinion and an OPR inquiry into whether the legal advice was prepared independently, objectively and competently. In public messaging, the group described the memo’s legal and factual predicates as failing to “do not withstand basic scrutiny” and rising to “the most profound legal ethics concerns.”

The operation targeted Nicolás Maduro, who was charged in 2020 and is now standing trial in New York. Reporting describes the mission as involving U.S. special forces and air sorties including attack helicopters and fighter jets, and officials have characterized it as a law enforcement operation aimed at a person indicted under U.S. law. The extent to which the OLC produced a tailored opinion specifically for the Maduro operation remains a central question for investigators and lawmakers.

Norm Eisen, identified as executive chair of Democracy Defenders Fund, framed the filings as part of a broader effort to hold government lawyers accountable, writing on social media that “Trump & enablers may THINK they can get away with invading Venezuela to seize its oil” and that the group’s “push for legal accountability starts with our ethics complaint against the lawyers authorizing this illegality.” Those comments underline the political salience of the legal debate and the stakes for executive branch legal practices.

Senate Judiciary leaders say they were initially excluded from a briefing about the operation, drawing bipartisan criticism. Chairman Chuck Grassley and Senator Dick Durbin later took a phone call with a Justice Department official identified in discussions as Bondi. Durbin told reporters that the attorney general had answered his questions, while his staff said the senator’s office had not yet received a legal opinion from the department. Grassley and Durbin issued a joint statement criticizing their exclusion from the initial briefing, underscoring tensions between the executive branch and congressional overseers on matters of national security and legal justification.

The dispute spotlights the OLC’s role as the Justice Department’s internal arbiter of legality for sensitive operations and the limited channels through which Congress can review classified legal advice. The complainants point to prior classified opinions that shielded U.S. personnel from prosecution for actions tied to anti‑narcotics strikes in the region as precedent that warrants scrutiny.

If the OLC memo rests on erroneous legal or factual premises, the complainants warn, lethal force used under that rationale would lack a lawful basis. They assert that, if the administration’s foundational premise is wrong, then the use of lethal force has no basis in domestic or international law and that the OLC memo transgresses ethics boundaries.

Next steps are likely to include the department’s response to FOIA demands, OPR’s decision on whether to open an investigation, and continued pressure from Senate Judiciary leaders for access to any legal opinions tied to the operation. The outcome will test institutional checks on executive legal reasoning and the transparency of legal advice that underpins the use of force.