Venezuelan President to Be Charged in the U.S. With Drug Trafficking

[Zorro]

Source: New York Times

The president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, was charged in the United States on Thursday with federal drug trafficking crimes after an investigation by federal authorities in Washington, New York and Florida, people briefed on the matter said.

The charges were expected to be announced Thursday morning at a live-streamed video news briefing by the head of the U.S. Justice Department’s Criminal Division in Washington and the top federal prosecutors in New York and Miami, according to a news advisory.

In addition to Mr. Maduro, charges are also expected to be announced against nearly a dozen others, including the Venezuelan government and intelligence officials and members of the largest rebel group in Colombia, the Revolutionary Armed Forces, known as FARC, which has long drawn its financing from the cocaine trade.

Few details of the charges were not available early on Thursday, but the charges included narco-terrorism conspiracy and conspiracy to import cocaine into the United States.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/26/nyregion/venezuela-president-drug-trafficking-nicolas-maduro.html

[mecherosegarden]

1. Finally!

No that he will care about it but at least that is something.

[ChiTownDenny]

9. Not that I disagree with you but

Venezuela could easily charge Trump with money laundering and it would have the same effect: nothing.

[yaesu]

11. oh, come on, these are tRumped up charges, the evil empire, US, just wants to overthrow

Valenzuela so we can put in a corporate puppet president.

[Brainfodder]

2. Have other countries charged any Trumps with crimes?

Just interested in optics....

[Cracklin Charlie]

3. What???

This is huge!

[bluedigger]

4. And yet Walmart gets a pass.

Remember the opioid crisis? That was a plague, a scourge, and a public-health emergency that the president* was going to fix behind the strong leadership of Jared Kushner. Well, in our continuing effort to keep an eye on administration corruption and incompetence that is unrelated to the current pandemic, we draw your attention to this story from the good folks at ProPublica.

The prosecution team had come to Washington to try to save its case. Joe Brown, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Texas, led the group, which included Heather Rattan, an over-20-year veteran of the office who had spent much of her career prosecuting members of drug cartels.

They first went to the Drug Enforcement Administration’s headquarters to meet the acting administrator, Uttam Dhillon. There Rattan laid out the evidence. Opioids dispensed by Walmart pharmacies in Texas had killed customers who had overdosed. The pharmacists who dispensed those opioids had told the company they didn’t want to fill the prescriptions because they were coming from doctors who were running pill mills. They pleaded for help and guidance from Walmart’s corporate office.

Investigators had obtained records of similar cries for help from Walmart pharmacists all over the country: from Maine, North Carolina, Kansas and Washington, and other states. They reported hundreds of thousands of suspicious or inappropriate opioid prescriptions. One Walmart employee warned about a Florida doctor who had a “list of patients from Kentucky that have been visiting pharmacies in all of central Wisconsin recently.” That doctor had sent patients to Walmarts in more than 30 other states.

Walmart ignored all these whistleblowers and, in fact, forbade them from cutting off the pill-peddling physicians. In short, these DOJ employees from Texas were preparing to indict and prosecute Walmart on the allegation it was a drug cartel. And, as we see above, they had as much evidence against the corporation as they ever had against Pablo Escobar. So they brought their case to Washington and astonished the acting head of the DEA with it. And then...

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a31927823/walmart-opioid-case-department-of-justice/

[oldsoftie]

5. Stealing all the money from the Venezuelan people wasnt enough?

Of course not
What a joke.
"Revolution" my ass

[marble falls]

6. Ginning up a little diversionary war there, Donnie?

[2naSalit]

12. Nothing else is working. ...nt

[marble falls]

15. This won't either. Panama wasn't the cakewalk it was projected to be. Venezuela is an order ...

of magnitude tougher.

[2naSalit]

17. Undoubtedly.

He is just desperate and too stupid to come up with anything other that attack and deflect/project. One trick pony. Eventually everyone with two functioning brain cells can smell the stink on his shit.

[mpcamb]

7. This was announced by Barr and Berman, so I looked up Berman:

Nearly 10 months after Preet Bharara was fired by the Trump administration U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions named his replacement, Geoffrey S. Berman.

Berman has ties to Trump.
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a prominent Trump ally, is also a Greenberg Traurig shareholder. Berman gave $5,400 to Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016 and has previously donated to Republicans. Berman was reportedly supported for a U.S. attorney appointment by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, whose family is prominent in New Jersey real estate development.

I don't know much about Maduro, but this has a funny smell.

[Princess Turandot]

14. Actually, Berman's been doing a decent job...

His connections to Trump have been exaggerated, as far as I can tell. Trump never even got around to putting Berman before Congress as the permanent SDNY USAG. When his interim appointment expired, Trump did nothing. The judges in the District then voted unanimously to extend his appointment indefinitely, under a rule that allows them to do so rather than have the position go vacant for an extended period of time. (If Trump nominates someone else for the permanent job and is successful, Berman would then be done, but Trump doesn't seem to care about the job.)

Giuliani recommended that Trump appoint Berman as one of the New Jersey USAGs, which is way different than the SDNY job. I don't know if they have a personal relationship: being at the same law firm is the only thing that is ever cited as a proof of such a thing. Given the sheer size of Greenberg Traurig - it's one of the largest law firms in the world and has more than a thousand partners - that's isn't proof of anything. (The firm severed their relationship with Giuliani around two years ago.)

His office has since indicted Michael Cohen (although Berman recused himself from that case), former Republican congressman Chris Collins, the Trump nutcase fan who sent bombs to various Democrats, Jeffrey Epstein, and various Russian and Ukrainian characters for various crimes, among others.

[marble falls]

16. Maduro's no saint. Then again, Donnie Two Scoops isn't a chiorboy.

[burrowowl]

8. Yes it stinks

[lsewpershad]

10. What if trump

were to be charged in Venezuela for plotting to overthrow the Venezuelan government?

[former9thward]

19. It is a illigitamate government.

The Organization of American States does not recognize the government. It says Guaido is the recognized leader. The only country in the Hemisphere that recognizes Maduro is Cuba.

https://usoas.usmission.gov/oas-welcomes-the-reelection-of-juan-guaido/

[Dr. Strange]

23. Actually, it would be Biden that would be charged.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/110836946

[Demonaut]

13. who cares right now!, not attacking you but the Justice dept does not need to do this..hey, this is

shiny!!, forget that your life is in peril

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

18. So is this going to be a pretense for invasion like it was with Panama?

Venezuela isn't as small and may not be as easy to invade.

[Archae]

21. I hope not, especially at this time.

But the Maduro family is so corrupt they stink on ice.

People are starving, But look at Maduro himself. Talk about a fat swine.

Gold is being shipped out of the country.

Humanitarian aid is being blocked so that Maduro can brag about how wonderful it is.

No, Venezuela put all their eggs into one basket, (oil) and Maduro's cronies took over control of the oil companies, no matter how incompetent they are.

That country is headed for a right-wing takeover, fact is an incompetent is an incompetent dictator, if they are "leftist" or "right-wing."

So it doesn't surprise me one bit, that Maduro is (allegedly) into dope smuggling.

Greed has no political leanings.

[hack89]

22. There will be no invasion. No need for it

We get all the oil we want from them - we are also their biggest trading partner. What would be the point?

[TheFourthMind]

20. How About the US President Be Charged with Murder? Trafficking Stupidity That Takes American Lives.