Vance riddle solved

WASHINGTON – JD Vance let slip a fascinating insight into Donald Trump’s chain of command, while discussing Nicolas Maduro’s capture in an exclusive interview with the Daily Mail on Tuesday. The vice president was grilled on his whereabouts in the early hours of January 3 as US special forces descended on Caracas in the most audacious military operation in Latin America in decades.

Vance was the subject of frenzied speculation in the aftermath as photos beamed out by the White House showed Donald Trump with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth and CIA Director John Ratcliffe in the Situation Room at Mar-a-Lago. Vance told the Mail he was out socialising when Rubio called to tell him that Trump had given the go-ahead for Operation Absolute Resolve. ‘‘I was in a van, in a mobile Situation Room about 20 miles away from Mar-a-Lago,’’ the vice president said. ‘‘I was actually with some friends, and Marco called me probably around 10:30pm and said, “This is going to happen tonight.” Vance dismissed rumours about his lack of involvement, telling the Mail: ‘‘I expected it was going to happen that night … the plan was originally for me to go in.’’ The vice president said he and Rubio discussed whether it ‘made sense’ for him to make the journey to the President’s Palm Beach club, but decided it could jeopardise operational security. ‘I travel with a very large Secret Service detail, and would it be a problem for the vice president to show up with 30 siren cars at Mar-a-Lago an hour before this operation goes live? And we decided. Yes,’ Vance said. ‘‘I would just watch it remotely and ensure that we preserved operational security, which, by the way, we were able to do.’’