President Trump is brushing off complaints from congressional Democrats who charge that he violated a 1973 law by failing to notify them before launching his operation to arrest President Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela.

“Congress has a tendency to leak,” Mr. Trump said when asked about the omission during a news conference at Mar-a-Lago. “This would not be good. If they leaked … I think maybe it would have been a very different result. 

“Congress will leak and we don’t want leakers,” Mr. Trump added.

The secretary of state, Marco Rubio, reinforced the president’s argument, saying the mission could have been endangered if anyone in Congress had been given advance notice.

“This was not the kind of mission that you could do congressional notification on,” Mr. Rubio said at Mar-a-Lago. “It was a trigger-based mission in which conditions had to be met night-after-night.

“We watched and monitored that for a number of days. It’s simply not the kind of mission that you can call people and say, ‘Hey, we may do this at some point in the next 15 days.'”

But several members of Congress — while offering no sympathy for Mr. Maduro — said Mr. Trump was obliged to notify them in advance by the War Powers Act of 1973, which says the president is required to consult with Congress “in every possible instance” before introducing forces into hostilities or situations where hostilities are imminent.

The former speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, said the operation was conducted in “flagrant disregard” of Congressional war powers. “President Trump has made no secret of his intentions to effectively abolish the Congress, and that pattern continues today,” she said on X.

“Maduro is an illegitimate ruler, but I have seen no evidence that his presidency poses a threat that would justify military action without Congressional authorization,” added the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, Congressman Jim Himes. “Nor have I heard a strategy for the day after and how we will prevent Venezuela from descending into chaos,” he said in a statement. 

“Nicolás Maduro was a thug and an illegitimate leader of Venezuela, terrorizing and oppressing its people for far too long and forcing many to leave the country,” Congressman Adam Schiff said in an X post.

“But starting a war to remove Maduro doesn’t just continue Donald Trump’s trampling of the Constitution, it further erodes America’s standing on the world stage and risks our adversaries mirroring this brazen illegal escalation.”

Democrats claim that Trump administration officials lied to Congress about their goals in Venezuela by insisting they had no desire for regime change.

“Congress did not authorize this war,” Congressman Seth Moulton wrote on X. “Venezuela posed no imminent threat to the United States. This is reckless, elective regime change risking American lives (Iraq 2.0) with no plan for the day after. Wars cost more than trophies.”

Senator Tim Kaine called the action an unauthorized military attack. “Where will this go next? Will the President deploy our troops to protect Iranian protesters? To enforce the fragile ceasefire in Gaza? To battle terrorists in Nigeria? To seize Greenland or the Panama Canal? To suppress Americans peacefully assembling to protest his policies?” Mr. Kaine asked in a statement.

“Trump has threatened to do all this and more and sees no need to seek legal authorization from the people’s elected legislature before putting servicemembers at risk,” Mr. Kaine continued.

Mr. Rubio portrayed the capture of Mr. Maduro less as a military action than as a legal operation.

“It’s largely a law enforcement function,” Mr. Rubio said. “Remember, at the end of the day, at its core, this was an arrest of two indicted fugitives of American justice and the Department of War supported the Department of Justice in that job.”

Mr. Trump complained about the Democratic criticism during a Fox News interview Saturday morning.

“They should say, ‘Great job,’” Mr. Trump said. “They shouldn’t say, ‘Oh, gee, maybe it’s not constitutional.’ You know, the same old stuff that we’ve been hearing for years and years and years.”

“All they do is complain,” Mr. Trump added.

There was one notable criticism from a Republican, Thomas Massie, who wrote on X after Attorney General Pam Bondi unsealed the indictment against Mr. Maduro.

“25 page indictment but no mention of fentanyl or stolen oil. Search it for yourself,” he wrote.