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The paper trail to Caracas -- Christina Pagel
https://christinapagel.substack.com/p/the-paper-trail-to-caracasHow the US spent months building the legal and military case for attacking Venezuela
In the early hours of Saturday 3rd January 2026, the United States attacked Venezuela's capital, invaded the president's residence and captured President Maduro and his wife. Both are now awaiting trial in New York on new indictments lodged by Attorney General Pam Bondi. President Trump has said the US will "run" Venezuela for now and has taken control of its oil industry.
While the final military operation might have been under cover of darkness, the build-up to it was out in the open for all to see. In this piece I have used the TrumpActionTracker to pull together the key events since the summer of 2025 that led to where we are now.
I will show the detailed timeline of not just the military strikes, but also the actions that supported them -- from moving materiel to the Caribbean to issuing new Executive Orders to laying down the (shaky) legal justification for what the US wanted to do.
. . .
Military Strikes
The military strikes themselves show a clear escalation. Since the first one in September 2025, the US had carried out 35 by the end of 2025, killing more than 115 people. The last 5 strikes alone came on the 30 and 31 December. As well as boat strikes, the US started seizing oil tankers in December, marking a clear shift in US interest to Venezuela's oil industry rather than its alleged involvement in drug trafficking. The attacks culminated with a CIA drone strike on a Venezuelan port just before New Year and finally the attack on the capital and capture of Maduro and his wife on 3 January.
The combined timeline of military attacks and build-up events is shown below. The full list of events in the chart, along with the date of each and a news source for each, is available in this Googlesheet.
. . .
While the final military operation might have been under cover of darkness, the build-up to it was out in the open for all to see. In this piece I have used the TrumpActionTracker to pull together the key events since the summer of 2025 that led to where we are now.
I will show the detailed timeline of not just the military strikes, but also the actions that supported them -- from moving materiel to the Caribbean to issuing new Executive Orders to laying down the (shaky) legal justification for what the US wanted to do.
. . .
Military Strikes
The military strikes themselves show a clear escalation. Since the first one in September 2025, the US had carried out 35 by the end of 2025, killing more than 115 people. The last 5 strikes alone came on the 30 and 31 December. As well as boat strikes, the US started seizing oil tankers in December, marking a clear shift in US interest to Venezuela's oil industry rather than its alleged involvement in drug trafficking. The attacks culminated with a CIA drone strike on a Venezuelan port just before New Year and finally the attack on the capital and capture of Maduro and his wife on 3 January.
The combined timeline of military attacks and build-up events is shown below. The full list of events in the chart, along with the date of each and a news source for each, is available in this Googlesheet.
. . .