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unidentified
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| Welcome back. | ||
| We're continuing our coverage of the aftermath of the U.S. strikes in Venezuela and the extraction of Nicholas Maduro and his wife and their upcoming prosecution in New York. | ||
| To help us through the details of the legal aspect of this case, I'm joined now by Joseph Moreno, who's a former federal prosecutor with the Department of Justice's National Security Division. | ||
| Thanks for coming in and welcome to Washington Journal. | ||
| Kimberly, good to be here. | ||
| So let's talk about this indictment. | ||
| We've got a narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices. | ||
| I see you have the indictment there with you. | ||
| Can you walk us through what these charges mean? | ||
| Sure. | ||
| So when you get past all of the intrigue about how Maduro was grabbed and whether or not there were international laws violated and whether he was an official head of state and all that, at the end of the day, this really comes down to a prosecution like anyone else. | ||
| Now he's sitting in a detention center up in New York. | ||
| He's going to face prosecutors from the Southern District of New York. | ||
| And this is the indictment as it currently stands, right? | ||
| It was initially brought back in 2020. | ||
| It was sealed. | ||
| And now we have a more modern version, a more revised version of it. | ||
| So the first one, this big one, this term narco-terrorism, this is kind of the term of the day, right? | ||
| The White House likes to use it. | ||
| The press office likes to use it. | ||
| It appears in the indictment. | ||
| It doesn't really have a legal meaning. | ||
| There is no law or statute called narco-terrorism. | ||
| What the administration has done here is a little circular. | ||
| What they're saying is that the FARC, FARC, which is one of the groups named in the indictment, was funded via the sale of narcotics, right? | ||
| The illegal sale of cocaine. | ||
| This is the group in Venezuela that you're referring to, the FARC, yes. | ||
| Correct, right. | ||
| So drugs were sold to fund a terrorist group, but it's a terrorist group because it sells drugs. | ||
| So it's not quite what we think of when we think of al-Qaeda or ISIS or Hamas or Hezbollah, right? | ||
| Those were very different, right? | ||
| Those were fundamentalist jihadist groups that were engaging in illegal activities to ferment a political movement. | ||
| This is different. | ||
| Narcotics trafficking is typically not considered terrorism. | ||
| It's a crime, and it is dealt with by agencies, civilian agencies like the FBI and the DEA. | ||
| So what I'm getting at here is this is a little bit of creative charging. | ||
| I got to think it'll withstand scrutiny, but you'll see a lot of litigation about this, about whether these groups are legitimately designated foreign terrorist organizations and what exactly is narcoterrorism. | ||
| So that's one thing. | ||
| The other three sets of charges, they're pretty standard, right? | ||
| The importation of controlled substances, right? | ||
| the manufacture and distribution of cocaine, right, in large amounts. | ||
| The possession and handling of machine guns, prohibited weaponry. | ||
| So I think once you get past all the flurry of what I've no doubt will be the initial spate of arguments by defense lawyers about how Maduro got here and whether or not it was legal to grab him out of Venezuela, I think what you're going to see is typical defense of these kinds of charges. | ||
| You'll see the challenging of the evidence. | ||
| You'll see the challenging of the charges themselves. | ||
| And you'll see a lot of back and forth. | ||
| What you would see with any kind of high-profile prosecution of a drug kingpin. | ||
| You mentioned that this was originally indicted, and the indictment was originally in 2020. | ||
| Can you take us back to where those original indictments came from and why we're seeing, is this a new indictment or is this just the original indictment unsealed? | ||
| So virtually all federal crimes are subject to what they call a statute of limitations. | ||
| What that means is charges, which come in the form of an indictment, must be brought within a certain amount of time from when the offenses occurred. | ||
| Most federal statutes are subject to a five-year statute of limitations. | ||
| Terrorism charges are mostly 10 years. | ||
| And then there are some serious ones like murder, which has no statute of limitations. | ||
| So what prosecutors will typically do is, in order to stop the clock, they will file an indictment of charges, even though someone, the defendant, might not be readily available. | ||
| They might be unknown location. | ||
| They might be overseas. | ||
| Well, we know where they are, but we can't get to them. | ||
| So filing an indictment stops the statute of limitations from continuing to run. | ||
| In this case, it was sealed because indictments are typically public because the public has a right to know who is being prosecuted and what they're being prosecuted for. | ||
| So now fast forward from 2020 to 2025, you now have a superseding indictment. | ||
| And all that really means is that the government has the opportunity to basically enhance the facts, possibly change the specifics of the counts that it's bringing. | ||
| In this case, the counts are the same. | ||
| It's the same four counts in the 2020 original indictment that's now in the 2025 unsealed subsequent superseding indictment. | ||
| The one big change I would note for people, though, appears right in the caption. | ||
| If you look back in 2020, the name Celia Maduro was not in the original indictment. | ||
| She does appear in this one. | ||
| So a big difference is that Nicholas Maduro was in the initial indictment back in 2020. | ||
| The First Lady is now in this one. | ||
| And of course, both of them were extracted yesterday and now sit in a jail cell in Brooklyn. | ||
| Do you have a sense of why the First Lady was included this time around? | ||
| Development of evidence, development of sources that gave information about her involvement in the government in Venezuela. | ||
| It does seem like they had planned this for a while because these kinds of operations don't just take place overnight. | ||
| There were, I'm sure, weeks or months of planning that went into this in terms of grabbing both of them. | ||
| So I have to think this was planned for quite a while. | ||
| Why is this going to be handled in the Southern District of New York? | ||
| So those of us who served in other offices like Washington, D.C. or the Eastern District of Virginia don't like to admit this. | ||
| But the Southern District of New York is largely seen as one of the most aggressive and competent offices. | ||
| It's very difficult to get jobs there. | ||
| It's very elite. | ||
| And they've handled some extremely high-profile cases over the years, like organized crime cases like against John Gotti, terrorism cases like the original World Trade Center bombing and the blind cheek. | ||
| High-profile politicians, including investigating President Trump himself during the Biden administration. | ||
| So a case like this, which is basically the importation of drugs to the United States in general, really could be prosecuted anywhere. | ||
| The fact that they gave it to the Southern District of New York, that's where they flew Maduro and his wife, and that's where he's sitting in detention, not a surprise because the Southern District will typically be the first one that the Justice Department looks to in terms of high-profile cases like this that are not geographically specific. | ||
| Walk us through the next few days. | ||
| What are we going to see as this case develops? | ||
| You'll see Maduro appear in court, along with his wife, at what they call an arraignment, where he gets the initial opportunity to hear the charges that are now public, that are being brought against him, and then he'll enter a plea. | ||
| 99% of the time, you plead not guilty, just because that's what you do to buy yourself time. | ||
| You don't plead guilty at the arraignment. | ||
| So we'll see him on camera, most likely. | ||
| We'll see him enter a not guilty plea, and then things get quiet for a while. | ||
| He will get representation, most likely high-profile defense representation. | ||
| And you'll see then a lot of behind-the-scenes back and forth. | ||
| I think you'll see a flurry of motions made about how exactly Maduro got here yesterday, the use of the military, the fact that he was a sovereign head of a sovereign nation, and whether or not there's international legal implications here. | ||
| You'll get past all that. | ||
| We'll see if it's successful. | ||
| I doubt it will be, actually. | ||
| And then it becomes, like I said, a traditional prosecution of a defendant in the United States being charged with crimes against individuals of the United States, and then it'll kind of go from there. | ||
| What sorts of rights does he have in the U.S. justice system as either a foreign person or as a foreign head of state? | ||
| He has all the rights of any criminal defendant. | ||
| So he has the right to counsel. | ||
| If he can't afford counsel, one will be appointed for him in terms of the federal public defender's office, also very, very good attorneys. | ||
| So if he does not want to get someone himself, then the federal government will provide it to him. | ||
| He has all the rights that are subject to constitutional amendments like the due process rights in terms of being able to see the evidence brought against him, witnesses brought against him, basically to see the prosecution's case. | ||
| So these cases, we don't do cases in secret here in the United States. | ||
| We do them in public. | ||
| And so he has all the rights that a U.S. criminal defendant will have. | ||
| Now, he will try to exercise the argument that he has some additional rights, that he has. | ||
| The first one will be that he has immunity, right? | ||
| That he's a foreign head of state, that we recognize immunity. | ||
| We don't do this kind of thing. | ||
| We don't just pull out leaders of other countries, even if we say that they're illegitimate and they're dictators. | ||
| The U.S. will say he's illegitimate, that he does not enjoy that right to sovereign immunity because he's not the properly installed leader of Venezuela. | ||
| This will go to the courts. | ||
| The courts will most likely not want to get involved. | ||
| They're going to say this is a foreign policy matter. | ||
| And how he got here, the use of the military, that's between Congress and the White House. | ||
| And whether or not he was a legitimate head of state, that's up to the State Department. | ||
| We're not going to get involved. | ||
| So I think you're going to see all this litigation about what rights he's going to say he has as a foreign leader. | ||
| I don't think he's going to get very far with any of those. | ||
| Representative Thomas Massey tweeted this yesterday. | ||
| If this action were constitutionally sound, the Attorney General wouldn't be tweeting that they've arrested the president of a sovereign country and his wife for possessing guns in violation of a 1934 U.S. firearm law. | ||
| What do you think of that take? | ||
| I mean, the date of the law doesn't really make a difference. | ||
| It's a legitimate law. | ||
| So I don't know about citing the fact that a law is old doesn't make it legitimate. | ||
| I think the largest point was what is the legal basis for arresting a foreign leader on foreign soil. | ||
| Right. | ||
| So look, it's a very gray area. | ||
| We do have a parallel here, which was the extraction of Manuel Noriega from Panama in 1989. | ||
| Extremely similar circumstances, right? | ||
| You had a foreign head of state who was indicted in the United States. | ||
| In his case, there were some drugs. | ||
| It's mostly money laundering and racketeering charges. | ||
| He was considered by the U.S. to be an illegitimate foreign leader. | ||
| In this case, he was a military leader that had installed himself, and the U.S. went in without authorization from Congress and took him out. | ||
| And then he faced trial in the United States and wound up going to jail for about 17 years. | ||
| So a lot of parallels there. | ||
| And Nuriega tried all these arguments about why he was exactly what I think Maduro will argue. | ||
| I'm a foreign head of state. | ||
| I enjoy immunity. | ||
| I was extracted illegally. | ||
| This was a military operation without congressional authorization. | ||
| And none of those got Nuriega very far. | ||
| The courts, again, they didn't want to get involved with those questions. | ||
| They said those are questions for the other branches of government. | ||
| Congress and the White House can fight over whether or not it was a proper use of the military. | ||
| We only care about him now as a criminal defendant sitting in court. | ||
| So I think Maduro is going to be basically treated the same way in New York. | ||
| If you have questions for Joseph Moreno about the legal aspects of this situation, you can call in. | ||
| Our line for Republicans is 202-748-8001. | ||
| For Democrats, 202-748-8000. | ||
| Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| You kind of mentioned this idea of whether if we think a leader is illegitimate, if it is legal to go after them. | ||
| There have been several critics who are arguing that using this same logic, Putin can go and arrest Zelensky in Ukraine or vice versa. | ||
| Some countries might want to go into Israel and arrest Benjamin Netanyahu or something else or even President Trump himself. | ||
| What do you think of these arguments? | ||
| Well, they touch on some legitimate points, right? | ||
| The White House is sort of making two arguments here. | ||
| One, they're saying that Maduro was the head of the terrorist organization and that under previous grants of authority by Congress, particularly the AUMF, which is the authorization for the use of military force, which let us go into Afghanistan, it was very broad and allowed the U.S. to engage terrorist groups. | ||
| So on the one hand, he's saying this was ahead of a terrorist group, and therefore we had the authorization to get him that way. | ||
| But he's also saying this was primarily a law enforcement operation, that this was head by the FBI and the DEA and the Justice Department. | ||
| And it was all about getting a criminal defendant, and the military was basically just a means to an end, that they were just assisting civilian law enforcement in getting him. | ||
| But it's really a civilian mission. | ||
| So to the latter point, if we accept that's a legitimate argument, then the White House can basically bypass Congress all the time because they'll just indict people. | ||
| So to your point, they're going to say, okay, we're indicting all these different heads of state for all these different crimes that we allege that they committed against the United States. | ||
| And now we're going to use this mechanism. | ||
| We're going to use the military to get them and bring them back to the U.S. | ||
| And we're going to bypass Congress. | ||
| That's the concern here. | ||
| So I think a lot of people who very legitimately say this was a good operation. | ||
| This was run very well by the military. | ||
| Maduro's a bad guy and it's right that he face prosecution. | ||
| Those aren't completely legitimate feelings and arguments. | ||
| And I share many of them. | ||
| But us legal guys, we do get into the weeds about how this was done, whether it was done properly, and what does it mean for the future? | ||
| There were also actual strikes on Venezuela as part of this operation, which several members of Congress have said those strikes were illegal under both international and U.S. law. | ||
| Where do you come down on that? | ||
| I think it's a very gray area, right? | ||
| Those strikes, which have been going on for months now, were sort of the, culminated in the extraction of Maduro yesterday. | ||
| So there's been a lot of debate for months now about what rules of engagement were being relied on there, whether or not the military should have been, again, effectively pursuing law enforcement means by engaging what they claim to be drug smugglers in open waters. | ||
| Historically, that was the mission of the Coast Guard, and they would protect the U.S. coast of drugs that were coming in. | ||
| And sometimes the military would support the Coast Guard. | ||
| And that was very common and very considered non-controversial. | ||
| Using the military to engage foreign vessels in open waters, that's controversial. | ||
| So again, these issues that have come up with the extraction of Maduro in the last 24 hours are not brand new because we've been building toward this for the last six months in terms of using our Navy to engage foreign vessels that are not flying a foreign flag on the allegation that they're criminals. | ||
| All right, let's go to our callers. | ||
| John is in Esopus, New York on our line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, John. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, thanks for taking my call. | |
| I mean, let's say this gentleman, and he's your guest. | ||
| How would you ever invite somebody like this as a guest? | ||
| Do you have a question for Mr. Marino? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, so I do. | |
| Say something good about the administration and our government today for what they did today, the military and what they did today. | ||
| And are you defending this guy they captured? | ||
| Are you one of the – you're a former. | ||
| Thank God you're former. | ||
| Because you don't belong. | ||
| You have nothing good to say about America. | ||
| Let me address that, John. | ||
| As a fellow New Yorker, originally, I am very proud to say that I have served in the Army for the last 25 years, both on active duty in Iraq and in Europe and in Africa. | ||
| And I currently serve in the reserves as a JAG officer. | ||
| So I'm actually quite proud of our government, our president, and exactly how the Army and the Navy carried out this operation. | ||
| I think there's a tremendous amount of good here. | ||
| Maduro was a bad guy. | ||
| These are legitimate criminal cases against him. | ||
| And I'm glad to see him in a holding facility in New York. | ||
| As a lawyer, I think these are legitimate questions about what the basis of this operation was. | ||
| And there's good and bad arguments on both sides. | ||
| The White House has very good arguments about why they believe they were justified in doing this. | ||
| On the other hand, Democrats raised some significant questions about whether or not notifications were made and what Congress's legitimate role here is. | ||
| So me personally, I mean, it doesn't matter what party I am. | ||
| I have plenty of good to say about the White House and the military. | ||
| But I'll also note that the opponents on the Democrat side raise good points. | ||
| And I think these are all legitimate points to discuss. | ||
| Another New Yorker has a question for you on X. Joe Delmonico asks, what happens if Maduro is acquitted by a jury? | ||
| I mean, great question. | ||
| Where does he go? | ||
| I mean, he's set free, right? | ||
| We don't keep people in prison who are acquitted of charges. | ||
| We're not going to send him to Guantanamo or something like that. | ||
| That's really off the table here. | ||
| He'll be released. | ||
| I guess the question is, where is he released? | ||
| Will Venezuela want him back? | ||
| Will another country like China or Russia, which seem to be backing Venezuela, will they provide him some kind of sanctuary? | ||
| I think it'll be a few years before we know this, because I think it's going to take a long time to get to trial and then through trial. | ||
| But it's a great question. | ||
| Another question from X. Do you agree that Congress should not be notified of U.S. operations involving strikes by the military in another country because they have leakers in Congress? | ||
| This is referencing what the President as well as Secretary of Defense said yesterday. | ||
| So you've seen a lot of reference in the last 24 hours to the War Powers Resolution, or sometimes called the War Powers Act. | ||
| And it precisely touches on when Congress should be notified of operations. | ||
| And it makes the point that if the President feels he must act imminently without notifying Congress first, he has to do so within 48 hours afterward. | ||
| So it absolutely recognizes that there are needs sometimes for the White House to act quickly and decisively, either because the window of opportunity is there and it could close, because of possible leakers, and the fact that you don't want to advertise operations in advance because then they could fail. | ||
| So it's not so much that Congress always has to be notified, but they are supposed to be notified and briefed truthfully within 48 hours of something like this happening. | ||
| And then there are further protections that give Congress the right to either approve continuing those operations or to shut it down. | ||
| Beth is in Florida on our line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Beth. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, I've got so many questions. | |
| I'll try to limit it. | ||
| Number one, on September 2nd, when we bombed that first GOFAS boat, we were told that was fentanyl. | ||
| Where is fentanyl in this indictment? | ||
| And number two, we're facing this gun charge on a 19, what is 34 law, and that was in what about machine guns? | ||
| But the Supreme Court has now ruled on bump stocks that virtually make a machine or a semi-automatic an automatic. | ||
| Where did the guns that they're charging them with having and conspiring about, where were they manufactured? | ||
| And if they were manufactured in the U.S., aren't we just as guilty of sending them guns as they are of sending us fentanyl? | ||
| And who has died in this country from taking fentanyl that was legal? | ||
| They've committed a crime by buying an illegal drug. | ||
| Beth, let me do my best with those. | ||
| First off, on the fentanyl point, you're right, there's no mention of fentanyl here. | ||
| We did hear a lot about that. | ||
| This is focused on cocaine. | ||
| And fentanyl comes over the border through other countries and we think largely originates from China. | ||
| So you're right. | ||
| This is apples and oranges here. | ||
| And whether or not that was a purposeful reference to fentanyl to kind of get it in people's minds or if it was a legitimate mistake, I don't know. | ||
| But you're absolutely right. | ||
| There's a discrepancy here between what we were told for a long time about one kind of illegal narcotic and then what was actually charged here, which is about cocaine. | ||
| Equally destructive, but you're right, not the same thing. | ||
| As far as the machine gun charges, again, I'm not really all that impressed with the fact that it's an old law. | ||
| We have lots of old laws. | ||
| And as long as they're legitimate and they haven't been struck down or repealed by Congress, I don't see the relevance in the fact that they've been on the books for a long time. | ||
| And as far as the origin of these machine guns, that I can't speak to. | ||
| I don't know if they're American originated or not. | ||
| I can tell you that the law does prohibit machine guns versus semi-automatic weapons, which are generally legal but controlled. | ||
| And so I'll kind of, hopefully I did my best there to address your concerns. | ||
| If I understand Beth correctly, the idea that if the Supreme Court allows bump stocks, why would machine guns not be allowed and be worthy of these charges? | ||
| That's a perfectly legitimate point for Maduro and his wife to raise in court. | ||
| Why not, you know, as part of attacking the prosecution, make that exact point about why these charges are not legit because of conflicting Supreme Court rulings. | ||
| Maybe he'll be successful, maybe he won't. | ||
| But if I was his defense lawyer, I'd make that argument. | ||
| Clint is in Arlington, Texas on our line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Clint. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| How are you doing, Mr. Moreno? | ||
| A couple questions. | ||
| I was just going to say, okay, Trump pardoned the former Honduran president, I think, in November for like the same thing. | ||
| So it's okay for him to do it, but I mean, it's okay for Maduro. | ||
| I mean, it's not okay for Maduro to sell drugs, but it's okay for the former Hodgeran president to sell drugs. | ||
| No, Clint, I fully get it. | ||
| It does seem really inconsistent. | ||
| And the pardon power, I mean, I've actually been pretty critical of it. | ||
| I think that presidents of both parties have really overused the pardon power, which was, I think, originally intended to be used very sparingly. | ||
| And now we've seen business associates, we've seen family members, and we've seen some pretty extreme cases which look awful, and yet they're pardoned by president, whether it's this president or the former one or former ones. | ||
| So I've actually been advocating for a while that this is an issue that I really do think Congress should take on about either putting some more controls or getting rid of the pardon power. | ||
| Now, it'll take an amendment to the Constitution, which is not easy, but I think that originally, remember, the federal government was much smaller when the Constitution was created, and the law enforcement of the function, the law enforcement function of the federal government is almost non-existent, right? | ||
| I mean, crimes were prosecuted at the state level, and they've grown over 200 years. | ||
| So I think much as the law enforcement function of the federal government has changed, I think the concept and the use of the pardon power should also be subject to change. | ||
| You kind of touched on this earlier, but it's a question on X from Riddle. | ||
| What's the proof Maduro's wife did anything wrong? | ||
| Can other countries kidnap Trump and Melania? | ||
| This is from Jennifer in Oak Park, Illinois. | ||
| Well, Jennifer, as far as the First Lady Maduro, I think that we'll have to find out in court. | ||
| You know, the indictment is very high level, right? | ||
| It treats them more or less equally, along with others that are named in the indictment. | ||
| So I think the details of who did what are absolutely fair game. | ||
| And I think as long as the Maduros plead not guilty and they want to fight these charges, I think they should put the prosecution to the test and say, okay, put your money where your mouth is. | ||
| Explain to a jury and a judge who did what and what the evidence is. | ||
| And I think that's completely fair game. | ||
| Oh, go ahead. | ||
| The other point was, remind me again. | ||
| Could other countries kidnap Trump and Melania? | ||
| Well, I mean, you would hope that wouldn't happen. | ||
| But I guess, you know, again, you always run the risk when you operate in a gray area like this and you take actions that are largely unprecedented, not completely, but largely unprecedented, that you've now set a pattern that others can adopt and say, well, if the leader of the United States does something, why can't another country do it? | ||
| And so again, I think this is where us lawyers do come in handy because we help, we try to help create some boundaries and some parameters about the use of these powers because otherwise, yes, it becomes the Wild West and a free-for-all. | ||
| Richard is in Brazil, Indiana, on our line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Richard. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Mr. Marino, two quick questions for you. | ||
| The first being, from a legal standpoint, you referenced earlier the situation with the invasion of Panama and Myanmar Noriega in the early 1980s. | ||
| Now, my question with that is, under that particular instance, do you not agree that that instance didn't need congressional approval because the legislature of the nation of Panama declared a state of war against the U.S., thus enacting hostilities that didn't need congressional approval? | ||
| And secondly, do you not feel that a legal international precedent is now set that says that countries such as China can now go into Taiwan because Chinese sovereign law was violated and do as they please with regime change? | ||
| Hey, morning, Richard. | ||
| As far the Noriega case, yes, Panama had declared hostilities against the U.S. and we had not reciprocated. | ||
| So, there was no proper declaration of war or even a congressional authorization in the Panama operation. | ||
| Noriega made all those arguments about why he felt his prosecution was illegitimate, and the courts weren't impressed. | ||
| So, they're legal, they're legitimate arguments, but he didn't get him a lot of traction. | ||
| I mean, those charges went forward like any other criminal defendant. | ||
| So, he wasn't really helped by that. | ||
| And as far as international law, remember, international law consists of UN declarations, consists of treaties signed by countries. | ||
| But as far as who enforces them, it's kind of loose, right? | ||
| I mean, so if China were to invade Taiwan, you know, it can make the defense, well, Trump invaded Venezuela, so we can do it. | ||
| How countries react to that, there's no legally binding way to say, well, now it's okay. | ||
| Countries could feel it's okay, and countries could feel it's not okay, and they will react accordingly. | ||
| And there's really no governing body to say who's right and who's wrong. | ||
| So, sure, I think that when you do something, you give other countries the ability to say, Well, you know, again, one country did it, so I can do it. | ||
| But at the end of the day, it's not so much a law or a precedent as it is how countries react on a case-by-case basis. | ||
| Don is in Brooklyn, New York, on our line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Don. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm having a hell of a hard time trying to understand where you're going with this, because it's not like there's a law, a body of laws and a procedural mechanism by which this could have been done or should have been done. | |
| This is just something that Trump dreamed up, and after the fact, they're coming up with this whole judicial process. | ||
| So, it's America manifesting its power, not in favor of some international law, but really once again, simply because it can. | ||
| And the shoe can be on the other foot very easily at any time, and we can regret that we set the precedent for this kind of business. | ||
| No, no, Don, I hear you. | ||
| There is no law the administration can point to that says this operation, this kind of thing, is allowed. | ||
| I mean, they're kind of, I used the word creative yesterday on another show. | ||
| They're kind of making it up as they go along. | ||
| You're right. | ||
| So, whether or not another country can now say, well, you set the precedent, we're going to do it, they can say that. | ||
| And how the U.S. responds to that will be, again, what the circumstances are. | ||
| But you're right, it does take away the sort of moral high ground that the U.S. can say, well, now we've done it, so it's going to be hard for us to say someone else can't do the same. | ||
| That's legit. | ||
| James is in Akron, Ohio, on our line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, James. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yes. | |
| Here, let me get you off of the speaker. | ||
| I'm sorry. | ||
| It's okay. | ||
| I have, I want to make a statement. | ||
| I have two questions. | ||
| The statement I agree with you on the pardon situation. | ||
| It should have to go before court or some type of a committee before a pardon is accepted. | ||
| It should be reasoning, I mean, serious reasoning why with that. | ||
| But my two questions is this. | ||
| This year, Donald Trump either fired or the great deal of the best attorneys that the federal government have resigned or quit or was fired. | ||
|
unidentified
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So who's going to represent the United States in this case? | |
| That's one. | ||
| And the other thing is this. | ||
| You know, Trump is saying now that he's looking at Cuba. | ||
| Well, you know, we have open relationships under Obama with Cuba, and that was one of the first acts that Trump did under his first term as president was to close the relationships and made it more difficult for people to visit Cuba after 50 years of not being able to visit at all, other than going through England or somewhere and then going to Cuba and coming back. | ||
| I'm just wondering about those two things about the, I heard the relationship with Cuba that he's pretty much appealed. | ||
| And he also, in the process, it kind of hurt the economy worse than it ever was. | ||
|
unidentified
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Right now, they have a lot of difficulty because of our laws. | |
| But I would like to know who's going to represent the United States in this case and his position on Cuba. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| James, quickly on your point about pardons, I actually really like the idea of a congressional approval process where the president proposes a pardon and Congress has to sign off. | ||
| So I think that's a great point. | ||
| As far as who represents the United States, I can assure you that there's plenty of us lawyers in plenty of cities in this country. | ||
| So there's never a dearth of us. | ||
| And yes, Trump has fired or has seen quit a whole number of lawyers from the government this year. | ||
| But believe me, there's plenty more that are happy to take on this case because if they win, it sort of makes a career for yourself. | ||
| You can brag for the rest of your legal career that I was on the team that prosecuted a high-profile case like that. | ||
| So I don't think there's going to be a problem finding attorneys to do this. | ||
| And as far as Cuba versus Venezuela versus elsewhere, you're touching on the fact that we have given the president, all presidents, a lot of latitude in terms of foreign policy, right? | ||
| And I think this goes to a larger question about whether Congress over decades now has gotten a little too hands-off. | ||
| Congress passes these very broad statutes that give a lot of latitude to then how the executive branch runs with them. | ||
| And regulations which are enacted on the executive side have just grown massively. | ||
| So I think whether it's this situation, whether it's the future of dealing with Cuba, or just foreign relations in general, this is an opportunity for Congress to say, all right, if we don't like the way things are going, if we think the president of either party has just too much power and too much latitude, this is the time to do it. | ||
| And it would be a great opportunity in one of those rare instances to see Republicans and Democrats maybe put their heads together and work together to kind of set some more parameters for what the president, this one, and future presidents can actually do. | ||
| Daryl is in Dayton, Ohio, on our line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Darrell. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yeah, hello. | |
| Yes, we can hear you. | ||
| What's your question for Mr. Moran? | ||
|
unidentified
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I have a question on the war on terror. | |
| If you take the last 22 years, you've got 9-11, Iraq, Afghanistan. | ||
|
unidentified
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I'm going to give you about 8,000 people was killed. | |
| Okay? | ||
| Now, fentanyl alone, because they don't even count Herald and Coke, you don't see them. | ||
| But Fentanyl alone in the last seven years has killed about a million Americans. | ||
| Okay? | ||
| So what makes you think that it shouldn't be a war on drugs? | ||
| Daryl, I'm old enough. | ||
| I'm dating myself here, but I remember the last war on drugs, right, under President Reagan in the 80s. | ||
| I think it's a noble cause. | ||
| I think that it's a scourge. | ||
| I have nine children myself. | ||
| I would be horrified if any of them were exposed to whether it's fentanyl or any other illegal drugs. | ||
| And I think it's an absolutely vital focus of our law enforcement system. | ||
| And I think there's been plenty of controversy about whether or not the war on terror was effective, whether or not we should have spent so much time in Afghanistan and Iraq. | ||
| I served there myself, as did my wife. | ||
| I have mixed feelings about the success of both those operations. | ||
| But I think you're touching on two obviously important things. | ||
| And again, this is where the President and Congress need to get together because resources are limited. | ||
| There's only a certain number of prosecutors, a certain number of FBI agents. | ||
| And so, again, where do we want to focus our resources? | ||
| War on drugs? | ||
| War on financial crimes? | ||
| War on terrorism. | ||
| All legit, but again, we have only certain limited resources and we have to focus them somewhere. | ||
| And we only have limited time, but thank you so much for sharing your expertise with us this morning, Joseph Moreno, who is a former federal prosecutor with the Department of Justice's National Security Division. | ||
| I appreciate your time this morning. | ||
|
unidentified
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My pleasure. | |
| The United Nations Security Council is due to meet Monday after the U.S. strike in Venezuela and capture of its long-serving president, Nicolas Maduro, a move that UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres views as setting a dangerous precedent. | ||
| Colombia, backed by Russia and China, requested the meeting of the 15-member council. | ||
| We'll have live coverage of the meeting at 10 a.m. Eastern on C-SPAN, C-SPAN Now, our free mobile app, and online at c-span.org. | ||
|
unidentified
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The United States struck military targets in... ...resulting in the capture of Nicolas Maduro... | |
| Hello, everybody. | ||
| Okay, thank you very much. | ||
| This is big stuff. | ||
| And we appreciate you being here. | ||
| Late last night and early today, at my direction, the United States Armed Forces conducted an extraordinary military operation in the capital of Venezuela. | ||
| Overwhelming American military power, air, land, and sea was used to launch a spectacular assault. | ||
| And it was an assault like people have not seen since World War II. | ||
| It was a force against a heavily fortified military fortress in the heart of Caracas to bring outlaw dictator Nicholas Maduro to justice. |