WASHINGTON: Democratic members of the US Congress said on Saturday that senior officials of President Donald Trump’s administration had misled them during recent briefings about ​plans for Venezuela by insisting they were not planning regime change in Caracas.

The US attacked Venezuela and deposed its long-serving President Nicolas Maduro in an overnight operation, in Washington’s most direct intervention in Latin America since the 1989 invasion of Panama.

Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democrats’ leader in the Senate, said he had been told in three classified briefings that the administration was not pursuing regime change or planning to take military action in Venezuela.

• Members of both parties had long clamored for more information

• Some Democrats say Trump administration lied to Congress