Drones flying near Venezuela’s presidential palace set off a hail of bullets and anti-aircraft fire in Caracas Monday night, days after US forces deposed and captured dictator Nicolas Maduro.  

The drones were “flying without permission,” Venezuela’s Ministry of Communication and Information said in a statement, according to CNN. 

“No confrontation occurred, and the entire country is completely calm,” the ministry added, without indicating who the drones may have belonged to. 

A White House official told the outlet that the reports of gunfire were being tracked but that “the US is not involved.”

Video footage posted on social media showed a chaotic scene outside the Miraflores palace, with security forces rushing to the palace as what appeared to be tracer bullets were being fired into the night sky.

"The first thing that came to mind was to see if there were planes flying ovehead but there were not,” a witness told AFP. “I just saw two red lights in the sky."

"Everyone was looking out their windows to see if there was a plane, to see what was happening."

CNN reports that different paramilitary groups guarding the palace could be heard talking about a “misunderstanding” that led to the barrage of bullets being fired.

WASHINGTON — Congressional lawmakers came away from a briefing with top Trump administration officials Monday with differing outlooks on the future of Venezuela, following the capture of dictator Nicolás Maduro.

“Their plan for the US running Venezuela is vague,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) told reporters after hearing from Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Attorney General Pam Bondi.

“I did not receive any assurance that we would not try to do the same thing in other countries,” Schumer added.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), who said he was informed about the military operation that captured the alleged drug kingpin by Rubio at 4 a.m. Saturday, described it as "a decisive and justified action.”

“An arrest warrant was issued and now he [Maduro] knows what accountability looks like,” Johnson said, arguing that "the Maduro organization functioned as a criminal organization masking as a government.”

“We are not at war. We do not have US armed forces in that country,” the House speaker told reporters.

“This is not a regime change. This is a demand for change of behavior by a regime,” Johnson said in response to a question about who will run Venezuela.

“We have a way of persuasion because, as you know, their oil exports have been seized,” he noted.

Johnson said Congress will retain oversight authority over US government activities in Venezuela and that all members will receive a briefing on Wednesday.

WASHINGTON — Top Trump administration officials briefed congressional leaders on Capitol Hill Monday about the lawfulness of last weekend’s military operation that captured Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro.

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Attorney General Pam Bondi all appeared to answer questions from the so-called Gang of Eight following the successful arrest of the alleged drug kingpin and enabler of narco-terrorist groups.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) both praised the spectacular, made-for-TV feat before the closed-door briefing at the Capitol.

“This was one that did not require prior authorization by Congress,” Johnson told reporters.

“I think the administration check all the boxes, and I don’t think what they did is out of line with what’s been done in the past,” Thune added. “There’s plenty of legal authority for that.”

Democratic leaders disagreed, with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) denouncing President Trump’s failure to request “explicit” approval from Congress.

“We have a whole lot of questions,” Schumer expressed to reporters outside the briefing room before heading in. “This is dangerous and reckless.”

The top leaders of the House and Senate committees overseeing the military and foreign policy also attended — though not those of the Senate Judiciary Committee, earning a rare rebuke.

“There is no legitimate basis for excluding the Senate Judiciary Committee from this briefing,” Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and ranking member Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said in a joint statement, noting Bondi’s attendance.

Among the questions almost certain to be asked by the lawmakers, in addition to the legal justification, is to what degree the US will oversee the transition of power in the wake of Maduro’s extradition and indictment in New York.

“That's a really important question, and a question the American people really need an answer on as clearly as possible,” Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman James Risch (R-Idaho) told Fox News "Special Report" host Bret Baier, when asked about how the transition would transpire.

Risch indicated that he was satisfied with what he's heard from the Trump administration about the operation in Venezuela.

“This was not an operation to start a forever war in Venezuela. It wasn't an operation to change regime, although, of course, that happened," he continued, noting that the US military was “very, very careful not to disrupt the infrastructure of the country."

Nicolás Maduro and wife Cilia Flores wore matching straw hats during a rally in Caracas last month.

Now they have matching handcuffs and a floor separating them at the notorious Metropolitan Detention Center jail in Brooklyn.

While Maduro, the now-toppled dictator of Venezuela, has been indicted in the US since 2020 on drug trafficking and narco-terror charges and is widely known to have ignored the results of his country’s 2024 election and seized power, much less is known about his wife.

However, the 69-year-old First Lady has been described by a former head of intelligence in Venezuela as being “behind the curtain, pulling the strings.”

“She is a fundamental figure in corruption in Venezuela — absolutely fundamental — and especially in the structure of power,” said Zair Mundaray, a former senior prosecutor in the Maduro government.

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Pro-Maduro thugs were called to the streets to hunt down Venezuelans who supported the US attack to oust the despotic president, according to a state of emergency order issued across the South American Nation over the weekend.

Venezuelan police were ordered to “immediately begin the national search and capture of everyone involved in the promotion or support for the armed attack by the United States,” according to the Saturday decree obtained by Reuters, which was published in full on Monday.

It remains unclear whether police had begun following that order — or if the Maduro regime’s notorious paramilitary enforcers had been dispatched — but photos began emerging across social media Monday that appeared to show heavily armed and masked civilians patrolling city streets and highways.

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Gov. Kathy Hochul said she ripped President Trump for acting without Congressional approval in Venezuela after he called her on Monday.

The Democratic governor also bizarrely claimed credit for sparking the nationwide "No Kings" protest movement against the Trump administration, as she celebrated the one-year anniversary of congestion pricing.

Standing with Mayor Zohran Mamdani, MTA CEO Janno Lieber and transit activists, Hochul said she told Trump the scheme to charge drivers in Lower Manhattan was working.

But when Trump brought up his raid on Venezuela that led to the capture of dictator Nicolás Maduro, Hochul said she told him "I disagree."

“You’ve got to go to Congress. You’ve got to get authority. It’s kind of important to do things like that,” Hochul said.

“He’s a bad guy, but you’ve got to get authority,” Hochul said she told Trump about Maduro.

Hochul, trying to appeal to lefty activists who pushed for the phased-in $15 toll for motorists, also claimed that she triggered the "No Kings" protests after she held a pro-congestion pricing press conference in February 2024 where she held up a picture of a fake TIME magazine cover put out by the White House depicting Trump as a king.

“I was pissed. I said, as you heard. I’m still angry when I think about it," Hochul said Monday. "We’re not laboring under a king but it was that image, that day that I believe triggered the ‘No Kings’ rallies all across America."

Venezuela’s vice president and oil minister Delcy Rodriguez was formally sworn in on Monday as the country’s interim president, as US-deposed President Nicolas Maduro appeared in a New York court on drug charges, after the Trump administration removed him from power in a dramatic weekend military action.

Rodriguez, a 56-year-old labor lawyer known for close connections to the private sector and her devotion to the ruling party, was sworn in by her brother Jorge, who is the head of the national assembly legislature.

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Ex-Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were pictured in a courtroom sketch from their arraignment Monday at Manhattan federal court.

The couple wore matching prison jumpsuits and were flanked by their defense attorneys, Mark Donnelly (second from right, in bowtie) and Andres Sanchez. Flores also appeared to have several bandages on her face.

Top Nicolas Maduro lawyer Barry Pollack hinted at a possible defense in court Monday — suggesting the US government violated laws by nabbing the dictator in Caracas and hauling him off for trial.

“There are issues about the legality of his military abduction,” Pollack told the judge.

The Trump administration has claimed it was within its rights to capture Maduro because he is a drug trafficker attacking the US.

Critics have argued that President Trump grossly overstepped his legal bounds under both US and international law.

One of the more bizarre moments in the Manhattan courtroom Monday occurred when Nicolas Maduro claimed he was “innocent” — and a Venezuelan detractor yelled from the gallery, “Jamas!’’

The Spanish word translates to “never’’ — but it is pronounced like “Hamas’’ in English, also the name of the Palestinian terror organization.

The sound jarred more than one court-goer, observers said.

The former spymaster of Venezuela could end up being a star prosecution witness at Nicolás Maduro's drug-trafficking trial, experts told The Post.

Hugo Carvajal -- the country's longtime spy chief, nicknamed "El Pollo" or "The Chicken" -- pleaded guilty in June to narco-terrorism, weapons and drug trafficking charges in the same case that Maduro was charged in.

And Carvajal -- who flipped allegiance and backed Maduro's opponent in 2019 -- has already expressed interest in cooperating with the feds as he faces the potential of life in prison at his sentencing, set for next month.

"This is exactly the type of person that would be a witness in the case," former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani told The Post.

If he takes the witness stand and testifies truthfully, he would get a "significant reduction in his sentence," Rahmani said.

"The sentencing [in drug-trafficking] cases are so high, so you have to cooperate," the lawyer added.

Dick Gregorie -- a prosecutor who handled a US case against another foreign leader, Manuel Noriega, in 1988 -- agreed there is a "good possibility" that Carvajal will be a prosecution witness.

"I would assume if he had a deal that he made six months ago, that they have probably been preparing him for weeks, or months, maybe," Gregorie added.

Prosecutors will also have "a number of internal people from Venezuela and drug dealers who were involved in moving the drugs" as witnesses, he said.

With Post wires

Twisted dictator Nicolas Maduro claimed he is a “prisoner of war’’ and “man of God’’ when confronted Monday by a Venezuelan countryman who said he had been an imprisoned victim of the fallen despot’s regime.

A man who identified himself as Pedro Rojas stood up in a Manhattan federal courtroom after the accused narco-trafficker’s arraignment and shouted at Maduro that he had been the South American nation’s illegitimate president and would now face “real justice.’’

Maduro turned to him and said, “I am a man of God” -- and called himself a POW — during an exchange in Spanish with Rojas as he was led out of the courtroom.

Rojas, 33, later told reporters that he was a political prisoner in Venezuela in 2019 for four months.