Homeland Security Dem blasted Trump for not ousting Maduro in 2019, now calls arrest 'above the law'

By Fox News · Fox News

The top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on Homeland Security once trashed President Donald Trump for not taking action after Nicolás Maduro retained power following 2019's disputed election versus Juan Guaidó. This week, Sen. Christopher Murphy’s tone appeared to change after the Connecticut Democrat went on a tweetstorm lambasting Trump’s operation to arrest the dictator over the weekend. In January 2019, the Venezuelan Political Crisis reached its climax with Maduro’s inauguration following a disputed election. The socialist party leader’s election had been declared invalid by opposition members of the National Assembly, and opposition candidate Juan Guaidó declared himself acting president. SCHUMER BLASTED TRUMP FOR FAILING TO OUST MADURO — NOW WARNS ARREST COULD LEAD TO ‘ENDLESS WAR’ Trump National Security Adviser John Bolton declared at the time the U.S. "will not recognize the Maduro dictatorship's illegitimate inauguration." At the time, Murphy responded to the Trump administration’s tact by blasting the White House on January 23 of that year for failing to act upon Maduro’s illegitimate stranglehold on power . "If Trump cared about consistency, he would make the realist case for intervention in Venezuela (getting rid of Maduro is good for the United States) rather than trying to pretend his administration all of a sudden cares about toppling anti-democratic regimes," Murphy tweeted. AMB GORDON SONDLAND: TRUMP SHOWED STRENGTH IN VENEZUELA — NOW FINISH THE JOB He added that U.S. foreign policy has always been a "muddle of values-based and interests-based decisions," but that Trump "takes it to the extreme" by embracing autocrats. "Strong men around the world are befuddled," Murphy added, appearing to compare the U.S. reaction to Maduro’s inauguration to its apparent "defense of a dictator who chopped up a political opponent" – an apparent reference to Saudi-born Washington Post writer Jamal Khashoggi, whose October 2018 murder many blam…