Donald Trump showed a taste for empire and plunder when he sent U.S. special forces to abduct Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife from their home in Caracas in an overnight raid Saturday, Jan. 3. The couple were brought to New York, where Maduro faces Trumped-up charges of supervising drug-running between Venezuela and the United States, and his wife, Cilia Flores, is charged with conspiracy.
The abduction of Maduro killed more than 100 people, most of them military, including 32 Cuban military and officials, but The New York Times confirmed at least two civilians, one of whom was 80-year-old Rosa Elena González. whose apartment in Catia La Mar, near Venezuela’s main airport, was bombed. And Johana Sierra, a 45-year-old woman was killed in a house in the southern part of Caracas that apparently was targeted because it had an antenna.
At his arraignment Jan. 5 in Manhattan, at the Daniel Patrick Moynihan US Courthouse, Maduro said in Spanish, “I am the president of Venezuela, and I consider myself a prisoner of war. They captured me in my house in Caracas.” He added, “I am not guilty. I am a decent man. I remain the president of my country.” Maduro told Alvin Hellerstein, a 92-year-old judge appointed to the Southern District of New York by former President Bill Clinton. The next hearing is set for March 17.
(Maduro and Flores were arraigned just around the corner from the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse, where Trump was convicted in 2024 of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.)
The indictment claims Maduro, who has been president of Venezuela since 2013, “has partnered with co-conspirators to use his illegally obtained authority and the institutions he corroded to transport thousands of tons of cocaine to the United States.”
Previously, Trump had claimed Maduro led the illegal export of fentanyl into the U.S, and Trump ordered destruction of at least 35 motorboats traveling off the coast of Venezuela, resulting deaths of at least 123 presumed “narcoterrorists” as of Jan. 7, claiming they carried dangerous drugs, but evidence was not produced.
Maduro has been president of Venezuela since March 5, 2013, when, after six months as vice president, President Hugo Chávez died. Maduro was named acting president until he was narrowly elected president in an April 14, 2013, special election, but his popularity declined following shortages in Venezuela and a drop in living standards, aggravated by U.S. sanctions placed on the Venezuelan economy, which led to a wave of protests in 2014 that escalated into daily marches nationwide and repression of dissent.
Maduro “now sits atop a corrupt, illegitimate government that, for decades, has leveraged government power to protect and promote illegal activity, including drug trafficking,” the indictment continues. “That drug trafficking has enriched and entrenched Venezuela’s political and military elite,” it claims.
Like her husband, Flores pleaded “not guilty, completely innocent,” during the arraignment.
The raid and abduction of Maduro on Jan. 3 was not authorized by Congress, which has not declared war on Venezuela. The U.N.’s top official, Secretary-General António Guterres, said the invasion violated the U.N. charter, but that doesn’t bother Trump, who doesn’t respect the authority of the Constitution any more than international law. Trump told The New York Times Jan. 7 only his “own morality” constrains his power as commander in chief, and he might use the military to strike, invade or coerce nations around the world. He still has designs to take Greenland from NATO ally Denmark, by force if necessary, despite a treaty with Denmark that allows the U.S. to build military installations in Greenland. But Trump said ownership is necessary, even if it results in the dismantling of NATO, which would be a major victory for Trump’s mentor, Vladimir Putin.
The Trump team defended the attack on Venezuela as a law enforcement operation, but 100 dead seems like a high body count to capture an alleged drug kingpin. Since the abduction Trump has been obsessive about controlling Venezuela’s oil reserves, but he found out when he brought top energy executives to the White House Jan. 10 they were not interested in investing billions of dollars to upgrade Venezuelan oil facilities because of the high cost of producing and refining extra heavy Orinoco crude oil and the instability of Venezuelan politics. The cost of drilling new American shale oil wells is about $62 a barrel while the break-even costs of drilling in Venezuela amount to $80 a barrel. “Darren Woods, the CEO of ExxonMobil, blurted out the awkward truth — namely that Venezuela is ‘uninvestable’ under current conditions,” Paul Krugman noted in his Substack column.
Trump responded by saying that he was “inclined” to block ExxonMobil from investing in Venezuela. “I didn’t like their response,” he said. “What’s next?” Krugman asked. “Will the Justice Department find some excuse to open a criminal investigation into Wood, the way it has against [Fed Chair] Jerome Powell?”
Then there was the killing of 37-year-old Renee Good in Minneapolis by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Jan. 7 after she failed to obey his order to get out of her car (after another ICE agent had ordered her to move her car). That got people’s attention, not only that the immigration shock troops were out of control, but Trump has no intention of bringing ICE under control.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said ICE officers were out in an enforcement action when they got stuck in the snow in Minneapolis. “They were attempting to push out their vehicle and a woman attacked them, and those surrounding them, and attempted to run them over and ram them with her vehicle,” Noem said.
The video of the shooting shows nothing of the sort—no stuck vehicle in sight, nor any ICE officer being attacked. But Noem used the incident to accuse Good of being a domestic terrorist who was paid to disrupt ICE’s work.
Trump piled on with a bigger lie, posting on social media that “the woman driving the car was very disorderly, obstructing and resisting, who then violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE Officer, who seems to have shot her in self defense. ... it is hard to believe he is alive, but is now recovering in the hospital. ... We need to stand by and protect our Law Enforcement Officers from this Radical Left Movement of Violence and Hate!”
Videos show Good was trying to steer away from the ICE agent, as another agent had ordered her to do, and Good told the aggressive agent she wasn’t mad at him, but the agent pulled out his gun and fired three shots at her, then he walked away with no apparent injury.
On Jan. 11, Trump backed off his lie that the ICE agent was injured, but when reporters asked him if he thought the agent’s use of force was warranted, Trump said, “The woman and her friend were highly disrespectful of law enforcement.” He added, “They were harassing, they were following for days and for hours, and I think, frankly, they’re professional agitators. And I’d like to find out and we are going to find out who’s paying for it,” he said.
Trump must be impeached for many crimes and misdeeds. Republicans won’t do it. Voters in the midterm election must put Democrats in the majority in Congress to call the demented extortionist to account. Either that or pray an aneurysm finally takes him out. — JMC
Another good column, Jim — I always appreciate your take on the world… 👍🏻
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