https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/venezuelas-maduro-appear-us-court-trump-says-further-strikes-possible-2026-01-05/ NEW YORK, Jan 5 (Reuters) - Toppled Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro pleaded not guilty on Monday to narcotics charges after President Donald Trump's stunning capture of him rattled world leaders and left officials in Caracas scrambling to respond.
Maduro, 63, pleaded innocent in New York federal court to four criminal counts: narco-terrorism, cocaine importation conspiracy and possession of machine guns and destructive devices.
"I am innocent. I am not guilty. I am a decent man. I am still president of my country," Maduro said through an interpreter, before being cut off by U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein.
Maduro's wife Cilia Flores also pleaded not guilty. The next court date was set for March 17. Dozens of protesters, both pro- and anti-Maduro, gathered outside the courthouse before the half-hour hearing.
>ACCUSATIONS OF COCAINE-TRAFFICKING Maduro is accused of overseeing a cocaine-trafficking network that partnered with violent groups including Mexico’s Sinaloa and Zetas cartels, Colombian FARC rebels and Venezuela's Tren de Aragua gang.
Maduro has long denied the allegations, saying they were a mask for imperialist designs on Venezuela's rich oil reserves.
Trump has made no secret of wanting to share in Venezuela's oil riches. U.S. oil companies' shares jumped on Monday, fueled by the prospect of access to its vast reserves.
While world leaders and U.S. politicians grappled with the extraordinary seizure of a head of state, an emergency order in Venezuela, published in full on Monday, ordered police to search and capture anyone who supported Saturday's U.S. attack.
At the United Nations, the Security Council debated the implications of the raid, which was condemned by Russia, China and leftist allies of Venezuela.
Anonymous
>>1472135 Ok ngl I kinda doubt the gun charges are getting past a jury because you can't really prosecute someone who doesn't live or has been to the US for possessing guns outside of it, but I'm curious; if the DOJ is incompetent enough or his lawyers are crafty enough... what happens if he gets declared not guilty? Do we just give him back? Obviously he's guilty of numerous crimes against the Venezuelan people but that's not what he's on trial for.
Anonymous
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U.N. chief Antonio Guterres raised concerns about instability in Venezuela and the legality of Trump's strike, the most dramatic U.S. intervention in Latin America since the 1989 Panama invasion. U.S. Special Forces swooped into Caracas by helicopter on Saturday, shattered his security cordon and dragged him from the threshold of a safe room.>MADURO, WIFE APPEAR, PLEAD NOT GUILTY >MADURO LAWYER PREDICTS LEGAL FIGHT OVER 'MILITARY ABDUCTION'
Anonymous
The U.S. has considered Maduro an illegitimate dictator since he declared victory in a 2018 election marred by allegations of massive irregularities.>TRUMP ASSERTS OIL ASPIRATIONS >ACTING VENEZUELAN PRESIDENT URGES COOPERATION
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Trump has threatened another strike if Venezuela does not cooperate with opening its oil industry and stopping drugs. Trump also threatened Colombia and Mexico on Sunday and said Cuba's communist government "looks like it's ready to fall".>CONSTERNATION GLOBALLY, POLITICAL STORM DOMESTICALLY
Anonymous
>>1472139 >The U.S. has considered Maduro an illegitimate dictator since he declared victory in a 2018 election marred by allegations of massive irregularities. Yet they recognize his Vice President as the leader of Venezuela despite the fact her being in that position should be equally illegitimate. I wonder if they'll try to pull that card in court.
Anonymous
>>1472141 You're assuming Maduro will be assigned a competent lawyer who will actually defend him, and not some Trump DOJ lackey hired to make sure he ends up in US prison for the next 25 years.
Anonymous
>>1472157 He has his own lawyers. The perks of being a fucking dictator who already beat his own country's legal system, albeit by force.
The bigger problem is Trump's lawyers are infamously incompetent, though I imagine part of why they chose New York is so they can smear "Woke democrat judges" when they fuck up.
Anonymous
>>1472157 barry pollack used to be julian assange's lawyer
Anonymous
Anonymous
>>1472135 >possession of machine guns What, did they slip a gun into his carry-on bag? Might as well accuse him of having illicit access to Venezuelan state secrets.
Anonymous
>>1472137 >>1472178 In US law, if someone uses or possesses machine guns or other weapons in furtherance of a drug-trafficking or narco-terrorism conspiracy, that can be charged as a separate offense
Anonymous
>>1472186 Ok but how does that apply if he has the guns in another country.
Anonymous
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>>1472186 They're going to have some jurisdictional problems if he didn't have a machine gun inside of the US.
Anonymous
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Hang on, I thought they couldn't give any foreigner a court date because the US doesn't have "authority" over them? When's this guy getting deported? They aren't getting their daily quota if they're going to be this lazy.
Anonymous
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>>1472207 Let this be a lesson that you can’t break US law whereever you are unless you are rich or Jewish
Oliver North approves this message
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tRump shouldn't have blown up the boats with the evidence on it
Anonymous
>>1472135 >Justice Department just dropped charging Maduro as the head of "Cartel de los Soles" They're gonna fuck this case up aren't they?
Anonymous
>>1472300 They're already charging a foreign head of state of owning a machine gun in New York, so you tell me
Anonymous
>>1472310 It's worth noting Maduro being the head of "Cartel de los Soles" was the entire fucking basis of the original indictment and charges against him. Of course, the main issue with that is "Cartel de los Soles" also doesn't fucking exist and never has; it was a Venezuelan media term used to describe Maduro's open corruption. It'd be like the equivalent of trying to directly charge Joe Biden for being the head of the "Biden Crime Family", or Trump himself as the leader of the "MAGA Cult". Treating them as actual organizations instead of media nicknames, which is naturally gonna fucking backfire when you bring it to court.
Anonymous
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>>1472186 So much for shall not infringe
Anonymous
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>>1472186 So the second amendment suddenly does t exist? Trump fags need to kts fast
Anonymous
>>1472325 >used to describe Maduro's open corruption Strictly speaking it was a term used to describe members of the Venezuelan military involved in drug smuggling operations, not corruption generally.
"Cartel de los Soles" is just a collective term for military members on the take with the narco gangs. It's like saying "dirty cops". The cartel part is just a term of art cause they act like and in many cases are cartel members. There isn't some drug smuggling org Maduro was running.
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>>1472300 >They're gonna fuck this case up aren't they? Would not fucking be surprised. There's a fucking reason they never closed Gitmo and just hauled the fuckers to the US to face charges.
Anonymous
>>1472135 so how about illegal imprisonment of children and getting 7million+ people to flee the country and seek asylum?
Anonymous
>>1472160 >infamously incompetent lemme guess a legaleagle fakenews watcher?
trump's lawyers did the best with what they had hard to win a turd case
Anonymous
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>>1472331 Which makes it all the stupider that they decided to declare it a foreign narco-terrorist organization that Maduro was the head of. Only now that he's about to face trial did the DOJ realize "wait shit, this org we're alleging he's the head of doesn't actually exist and he can easily use that to get out of the charges" and swap to more generic drug trafficking charges... which might just fall apart because he can play the plausible deniability card, which, combined with his lawyer ironically being able to use Trump's declaration of wanting the oil to argue this is a political prosecution, might legitimately let him get off with a not-guilty verdict. And god knows what happens in that case.
Anonymous
>>1472333 If we're listing all of Trump's crimes, that isn't even in the top 10.
Anonymous
>>1472335 >trump's lawyers did the best with what they had hard to win a turd case Competent lawyers don't bring turd cases.
Or get thrown off the job for being illegally appointed.
Or fail to get a fucking indictment. Repeatedly. On the same fucking case.
Anonymous
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>>1472352 >Competent lawyers don't bring turd cases. wrong, you're so naive
>>1472352 >Or fail to get a fucking indictment. Repeatedly. On the same fucking case. so what does that make the procecution?
Anonymous
>>1472333 Is that worse then raping them?
Anonymous
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>>1472359 they're probably still being raped and bred in some underground venezuela camp to this day
Anonymous
>>1472186 It is so fucking retarded that this is one country prosecuting another country for not following it's laws. Including of all things, that country owning weapons. By this measure, China would be fully justified in kidnapping Trump, putting him on trial for terrorism and then declaring all US firearms owned by civilians are illegal.
This is the precedent Trump is setting with this turbo retard bullshit he's pulling.
Anonymous
>>1472409 He trafficked drugs in our country.
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>>1472411 >our esl shill, get real
Anonymous
>>1472411 He allegedly trafficked drugs into the country, perhaps he did. But it's hard to take Trump seriously when he claimed that was the reason for all of this when he literally just pardoned Juan Orlando Hernández for doing exactly the same thing. He cares about oil. It was blatantly obvious before. Now he's said it himself. No amount of mossad spin doctoring will fool anyone at this point.
Anonymous
>>1472421 I genuinely doubt the DOJ can even get him on that. They already had to roll back describing him as a "cartel" head because the "cartel" they listed him as leading was just a media nickname for corrupt cops. His lawyer legitimately can just argue "well, there were corrupt officials in his country that trafficked drugs, but HE didn't have anything to do with it!". And naturally since we can't even pull up those officials (who are STILL IN POWER back in Venezuela) the charges are going to fizzle out.
The only way Maduro would've actually seen justice is in a Venezuelan court that can hold him for all the crimes he committed against his own people. But no; Trump decided to swoop in and bring him to the US, saying he's illegitimate while simultaneously giving the country over to his VP (who should be considered and IS equally illegitimate) instead of the opposition or the guy who actually won the elections Maduro stole.
Anonymous
>>1472335 James Comey
Letitia James
Anonymous
>>1472435 Reminder Trump's lawyers in the Comey case literally lied about the results of the grand jury to try to bring 3 charges instead of 2 because the jury only agreed they even had a case for 2. The whole thing being dismissed due to Trump's illegal and illegitimate attorneys was actually to their benefit because otherwise they could've been disbarred for that stunt.
And speaking of which, let's also laugh at the retardation that got both cases dismissed; trying to put in district attorneys without confirmation by putting them in permanent "interim" positions, which only accomplished getting both cases dismissed because Comey and James correctly brought up that the people bringing charges weren't legally in their positions.
Anonymous
>>1472424 Fundamentally, there's no reason to do any of this by law, really. Venezuela can't get him back no matter what happens here, they don't have the power or the clout to make that happen, and nobody else does either. Europe isn't going to rescue him and neither will anybody else - so really, anything from just shooting him and throwing him off a cliff or feeding him into a wood chipper is entirely on the table. Even if it pissed off the American public, what are they going to do? The media will bitch for two weeks and go on to the next thing. This is a fait accompli, its already won, because every resolution short of complete capitulation and the return of Maduro to his own country is a loss for Maduro.
They should just kill him, or throw him in a permanent prison hole somewhere and dare other countries to make it into an issue. Democracy has already survived past its sell-by date, at this point it would be nice if the government would just start solving problems permanently, rather than allowing bureaucracy to keep fucking everything up forever.
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Even if you believe most people in Venezuela support the ousting out of their president, you would have to be a fool to believe that Venezuelans are complicity going to support the American military industrial complex establishing an export oil industry for the benefit of foreign invaders. They're going to want what socialism promised them originally when the government took control of the American-controlled oil industry during the LAST revolution.
Anonymous
>>1472462 >throw him in a permanent prison hole somewhere and dare other countries to make it into an issue. Which is probably going to happen, regardless of if he's found guilty or not. And honestly "not guilty" has a pretty good chance considering how shit Trump's DOJ is.
The real problem is this shit emboldens US enemies to do the same. If say, China does this to Taiwan, we are FUCKED.
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>>1472469 It doesn't as long as the US continues to use force to resolve its issues, because there are no peers or near-peers on the planet. We have uncontested control of orbit, air, land and sea, and more importantly, all the world's trade lanes and financial sectors. China could be a solved problem tomorrow if any of our leaders had the balls to make it happen, but most of them are busy protecting grifts and cashflow.
We don't have to worry about what our enemies are doing, our enemies have to worry about what we're doing.
Anonymous
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So how come Maduro wasn't allowed to delay his trial by months and shop for his own judge like trump did?
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>>1472135 Venezuela is now handing over about 50 million barrels of crude oil, which sounds really impressive until you realize the US pumps about 14 million barrels a day. We literally did all of this in exchange for... 3.5 days of oil as a one-off.
Anonymous
>>1472455 and the prosecution against trump tried to claim him hiring a hooker is election fraud because something something public perspective. then got shat on by the supreme court justice for why its being bought against trump and never against previous presidents and how isn't this weaponizing the political system against a political rival.
People love to talk shit about trump's lawyers but not about the dipshits going after him they rightfully lost their job.
Anonymous
>>1472546 >they rightfully lost their job. Didn't happen and Trump still has 30+ felonies to his name, but ok.
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>>1472546 you're giving it up with extra mouth sauce today huh shill
Anonymous
>>1472548 oh ok i guess all of those federal procecutors are still working at the federal government then good to know I was wrong. and every leftist screeching about how people who were against trump weren't being fired. you should really get in check with those alarmist leftists fake news outlets they sure spread alot of shit.
suure he does, its a new york jury dipshit, its a saying that you could literally get a jury to convict a ham sandwitch. It'd of been overturned on appeal even without presidential immunity since they broke his constitutional right to a fair and impartial jury.
But i guess dipshits like you didn't actually follow the case. here's the thing you had jury members claiming
>>"yes i hate trump but I can definitely be an unbiased jury, no we aren't moving it out of a democrat stronghold to a more balanced jurisdiction, and yes the judge's daughter was crowdfunding using the trial for an anti trump fund". definitely fair and impartial in your mentally ill mind dipshit
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>>1472554 get a real job faggot
Anonymous
>Invades country without provocation >Kills at least fifty men >Kidnaps a head of state and his wife >Prosecution is already fucking up so bad that a Not Guilty verdict is genuinely possible
Anonymous
>>1472590 >supporting a foreign dictator that's tossed thousands into concentration camps including children and made over 7million people refugees. yeah you should go fucking kill yourself
leftist scum even venuezulians fucking hate you slacktivist losers
Anonymous
>>1472591 this post is so bad i'm going to assume it's leftwing satire
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>>1472592 https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/americas/south-america/venezuela/report-venezuela/ the only solution for you supporting a dictator is to be made into soylent green you filthy traitor to humanity
Anonymous
>>1472591 At what point did I defend Maduro?
Anonymous
>>1472594 he's retarded, don't blame him
Anonymous
>>1472594 >>1472595 tbf with the legal chops we've seen from Trump so far, he's almost certainly going free
we're going to get a trump appeal rant about it
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>>1472596 he should've stuck with the seashells
Anonymous
>>1472594 if you aren't with trump ur with maduro
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>>1472596 This is exactly what I'm talking about. They breached like fifty different international norms and they didn't even bother getting all their ducks in a row first, so it could well all be for nothing.
Anonymous
>>1472599 >the whole world (except israel) stands with maduro lmao
Anonymous
>>1472607 >china russia north korea is the entire world ya no wonder ur a retarded dipshit notice the similarities?
the veuezulians are calling you leftists retarded out of touch morons too thinking they want a dictator who imprison kids to torture
you're so stupid and out of touch you should just kill yourself
Anonymous
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>>1472608 >angry zogsemen fueled rant lmao
