The superseding federal indictment unsealed against Venezuela’s leader Nicolás Maduro on Saturday immediately after his capture closely resembles 2020 charges against him but has several important new twists: the new indictment appears to embrace controversial claims made by the Trump administration about a Venezuelan street gang, Tren de Aragua (TdA).
Maduro was captured by US forces early Saturday and ferreted out of the country after a series of explosions in the Venezuelan capital. The operation has drawn widespread international criticism and outrage from Democrats on Capitol Hill.
One of Maduro’s five co-defendants is the alleged founder of the gang, Héctor Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, who was indicted separately two weeks ago.
Though the indictment doesn’t allege Maduro ever met Guerrero Flores, it builds the case in court for what critics say are Trump’s exaggerated and unsubstantiated allegations about TdA. Trump has repeatedly insisted Venezuela’s government sent the gang to the US intentionally as a form of guerrilla warfare, to commit crimes and spread chaos, and has used the claims to further his foreign policy and his mass deportation tactics.
Imagine how fuckin funny it would be if he wins
If that’s a remote possibility, he will probably kill himself before it happens. Naturally in a moment when all cameras in the detention facility mysteriously malfunction.
It’s the American version of falling out of a window these days.
Someone needs to bring this up in the birthright citizenship case. As I understand it, trump’s admin is claiming the 14th amendment doesn’t apply to certain people because they aren’t “subject to the jurisdiction” of the US. But here they are saying that even the leaders of foreign nations are subject to US jurisdiction.