# The Narcoterrorism Case Against Maduro

An episode of [Bloomberg Law](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/277975394), 30 Mar 2026, 37 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/7c892d84-801f-4c0b-b0e9-ae2b0012ff5f/fac42593-e695-441f-a84a-b41d01691386/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=91224201-26a6-429d-ac3c-ae2b0012ff6d

Alamdar Hamdani, a partner at Bracewell and the former US Attorney for the Southern District of Texas, discusses the narcoterrorism charges against ousted Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro. Then Bloomberg Law reporter Suzanne Monyak talks about the judiciary seeking additional funds to protect against the increasing threats against judges. June Grasso hosts. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:02] Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Law with June Grosseo from Bloomberg Radio.
[0:09] Speaker 2: As federal prosecutors are pushing forward with a broad drug
[0:13] Speaker 2: trafficking and narco terrorism conspiracy case against ousted Venezuelan leader
[0:19] Speaker 2: Nicolas Maduro. President Trump discussed the case during a cabinet
[0:24] Speaker 2: meeting on Thursday.
[0:26] Speaker 3: Was a major purveyor of drugs coming into our country.
[0:30] Speaker 3: And he's now been captured, and you know, I guess
[0:35] Speaker 3: be given a fair trial, but I would imagine there
[0:39] Speaker 3: are other trials coming because they have just they've really
[0:43] Speaker 3: suit him, just an affraction of the kind of things
[0:45] Speaker 3: that he's done. Other cases are going to be brought.
[0:48] Speaker 2: As you probably know, Maduro is already facing stiff prison
[0:53] Speaker 2: time if convicted. The narco terrorism carries a twenty year
[0:57] Speaker 2: mandatory minimum sentence. My guest is a Lumdar Hamdani, a
[1:02] Speaker 2: partner at Bracewell and the former US Attorney for the
[1:05] Speaker 2: Southern District of Texas. The narco terrorism statute is rarely used.
[1:11] Speaker 2: Tell us about it.
[1:12] Speaker 1: The narco terrorism Statute requires the government to prove that
[1:16] Speaker 1: the defendants conspired to engage in conduct, first of all,
[1:21] Speaker 1: punishable under normal narco statute. It's called section eight forty
[1:26] Speaker 1: one A, and that is the distribution of, for example,
[1:29] Speaker 1: over five kilograms of a certain substance like cocaine, and
[1:33] Speaker 1: knowing and intending to provide directly and indirectly. And this
[1:37] Speaker 1: is what makes Naco terrorism different. Something of pecuniary value
[1:41] Speaker 1: to a group that's engaged in terrorist activity. So you know,
[1:46] Speaker 1: normally it's been used, for example, to go after groups that,
[1:51] Speaker 1: for example, have supported the FARC, which is a Colombian
[1:55] Speaker 1: designated terrorist organization. And you know, it's it's really used.
[2:00] Speaker 1: Is the statute that's not used that much. When I
[2:03] Speaker 1: was the US Attorney for the Southern District of Texas,
[2:06] Speaker 1: we had four hundred miles of border with Mexico. I
[2:08] Speaker 1: had probably the largest team of cartel prosecutors, and that
[2:12] Speaker 1: statute is rarely used, probably because of a couple of reasons.
[2:16] Speaker 1: You've got two additional layers of complexity that deal with
[2:21] Speaker 1: the Knocko terrorism statute. First of all, you've got to prove,
[2:24] Speaker 1: of course, as a drug conspiracy, and the larger the organization,
[2:29] Speaker 1: the higher up the organization, proving that becomes incredibly complex.
[2:33] Speaker 1: And add to that the additional complexity of charging somebody
[2:39] Speaker 1: with providing some sort of pecuniary interest to a terrorist
[2:43] Speaker 1: group or group engaged in terrorist activity. And I spent
[2:46] Speaker 1: most of my career in national security chasing terrorists, and
[2:50] Speaker 1: I can tell you just the run of the mill
[2:53] Speaker 1: material support to terrorism statutes themselves are complicated. So it
[2:57] Speaker 1: is a statue that is complex, has a lot of
[3:02] Speaker 1: complexities in being able to prove, but is also incredibly powerful.
[3:07] Speaker 2: Is there a reason why you think the administration chows
[3:10] Speaker 2: narco terrorism charges here?
[3:13] Speaker 1: You know, I think it is, and I think it's
[3:14] Speaker 1: just to make sure that they have several different options
[3:18] Speaker 1: as it relates to somebody's high profile of course, as
[3:23] Speaker 1: Maduro and his wife and his son, right, and several
[3:26] Speaker 1: higher people within the government, you know, as a prosecutor,
[3:30] Speaker 1: one of the things we're going to do is try
[3:32] Speaker 1: to bring, of course charges that follow the facts and
[3:36] Speaker 1: the law, but I'm going to give myself many options
[3:38] Speaker 1: when charging, especially somebody's high profile. Is this So what
[3:41] Speaker 1: you've got is you've got the traditional drug conspiracy statutes,
[3:45] Speaker 1: which on its face should be you know, relatively simple
[3:49] Speaker 1: to prove, although like I said, complex to hire you
[3:51] Speaker 1: go up a chain. You've also got a couple of
[3:55] Speaker 1: weapons statutes. One of them is pretty powerful. It's one
[3:58] Speaker 1: that is a thirty year minimum one that relates to
[4:00] Speaker 1: machine guns. And the reason I believe they added on,
[4:03] Speaker 1: of course, the narco terrorism statute was for two reasons.
[4:06] Speaker 1: First of all, give themselves a second option when dealing
[4:09] Speaker 1: with somebody like a Maduro. But also it's part of
[4:13] Speaker 1: the narrative. It's part of the narrative of the indictment. Now,
[4:16] Speaker 1: this indictment is what you call a speaking indictment, So
[4:19] Speaker 1: it's one where the prosecutors have said, let me tell
[4:21] Speaker 1: you a story. And the reason they do that is,
[4:24] Speaker 1: of course, first of all, to tell the public what's
[4:28] Speaker 1: going on. Secondly, to deter others from doing what happened here,
[4:32] Speaker 1: but most importantly, to let Maduro and his co defendants
[4:36] Speaker 1: know this is what we have, right and this is
[4:38] Speaker 1: what you're facing.
[4:39] Speaker 2: So what do they have? What do you know that
[4:41] Speaker 2: they have from the indictment.
[4:43] Speaker 1: So from the indictment, there's many different things that you
[4:46] Speaker 1: see here. First of all, you see a decades long
[4:49] Speaker 1: conspiracy as it relates, let's say, first of all, to drugs.
[4:54] Speaker 1: You've seen tons of drugs being exported out of Venezuela
[5:00] Speaker 1: through Colombia to other parts of the world, including the
[5:03] Speaker 1: United States. You've got people high within the Venezuelan government
[5:08] Speaker 1: involved in this, including and this is important in prior
[5:12] Speaker 1: in Diamonds. They had two other defendants that were charged
[5:15] Speaker 1: and they pled guilty, one in June of twenty twenty
[5:18] Speaker 1: five and one in two and twenty three. And so
[5:21] Speaker 1: what that tells you is the government itself has a
[5:25] Speaker 1: case built upon not only, of course documentary evidence, but
[5:28] Speaker 1: also some very high level cooperatives. And then what makes
[5:32] Speaker 1: this endement very interesting is how they lay out the
[5:36] Speaker 1: rise of Maduro over those decades and how he used
[5:41] Speaker 1: his power his office to not only of course enrich himself,
[5:46] Speaker 1: enrich his family, but also enrich several cartels that have
[5:51] Speaker 1: not been designated as foreign terrorist organizations. One of them,
[5:54] Speaker 1: of course we talked about earlier, was the FARC. The
[5:56] Speaker 1: other one you've got trend de Agua, which is of
[5:59] Speaker 1: course based in Venezuela. You've also got the Zettas out
[6:03] Speaker 1: of Mexico, which it also names. And so you know,
[6:06] Speaker 1: what you have with this indictment is a story about
[6:11] Speaker 1: a man who rose up over the decades, used his
[6:15] Speaker 1: growing power and influence to enrich himself, who cared not
[6:20] Speaker 1: about the drugs that were leaving his country and in
[6:23] Speaker 1: fact invited that to also enrich himself. You saw a family,
[6:27] Speaker 1: at least according to the indictment, that was equally as corrupt.
[6:31] Speaker 1: And then finally, what I found interesting in this indictment
[6:35] Speaker 1: is beyond all the other things I've just talked about, right,
[6:38] Speaker 1: is that the government questions the legitimacy of Maduro as
[6:43] Speaker 1: a leader. And they talk about the twenty twenty four election,
[6:48] Speaker 1: which he lost, but he claims he won and he
[6:51] Speaker 1: Hence what they do is say because he's an illegitimate leader.
[6:55] Speaker 1: I think the implication is later on, if his defense says, well,
[6:59] Speaker 1: we have immunity, we have diplomatic community because he is
[7:03] Speaker 1: the leader of a state, the government's response is going
[7:06] Speaker 1: to be, no, he isn't. He is the illegitimate leader.
[7:09] Speaker 1: He calls himself one, but he is not one.
[7:12] Speaker 2: There was an executive order that declared drug cartels as
[7:16] Speaker 2: foreign terrorist organizations? Does that cut with two wide a swap?
[7:22] Speaker 1: On February twentieth, Secretary of State then declared not all cartels,
[7:26] Speaker 1: but eight cortels in Mexico as foreign terrorist organizations, including
[7:32] Speaker 1: for example, Cartel del Noroeste, the Sinaloa Cartel, the Hellisco
[7:36] Speaker 1: New Generation Cantel also known as CJNG, and the Gulf Cartel.
[7:42] Speaker 1: Those are the four big cartels in Mexico, and if
[7:44] Speaker 1: you were to Mexico, they run swaps of Mexico. In
[7:47] Speaker 1: addition to that, the Secretary of State also designated Frenda
[7:51] Speaker 1: Agua out of Venezuela as one of the cortels as
[7:54] Speaker 1: foreign terrorist organizations. And I'll tell you this the one
[7:58] Speaker 1: thing about cartels that I learned, especially as the US Attorney.
[8:01] Speaker 1: I remember I used to get up in front of
[8:03] Speaker 1: cameras when I was announcing charges against cartel members. I mean,
[8:06] Speaker 1: it was a very important thing to do, and I
[8:08] Speaker 1: would say, I would say, my goal is to disrupt
[8:12] Speaker 1: and dismantle the cartels. But I also understood that once
[8:17] Speaker 1: we cut off the head of a cartel, another one
[8:20] Speaker 1: would grow. Whatever you think about this administration, it's designation
[8:26] Speaker 1: of cartels, which I would argue or organizations only held
[8:30] Speaker 1: built on one thing, and that is to get as
[8:32] Speaker 1: much money as they can at the expense of anything,
[8:35] Speaker 1: at the expense of lives of public officials, of police
[8:39] Speaker 1: of innocent people. They will do it just to get
[8:42] Speaker 1: an extra dollar.
[8:43] Speaker 4: You know.
[8:44] Speaker 1: And so I would argue that designating as foreign terist
[8:48] Speaker 1: organizations may may help up the one source of lifelines
[8:54] Speaker 1: that they have, the blood that runs through their veins,
[8:56] Speaker 1: and that is money. And so if organizations, if companies,
[9:00] Speaker 1: for example, say I cannot hire this company in Mexico
[9:04] Speaker 1: because this company I'm hiring is related to the cartels,
[9:08] Speaker 1: and I could be charged. My organizations could be charged
[9:12] Speaker 1: for providing material support to terrorism. And you know, I'll
[9:15] Speaker 1: give you a great example. In twenty twenty one, a
[9:20] Speaker 1: company called LeFarge out of France was the very first
[9:25] Speaker 1: and the only company so far that has pled guilty
[9:28] Speaker 1: to providing material support to terrorism. What it did is
[9:31] Speaker 1: it went to Syria a decade earlier and tried to
[9:35] Speaker 1: work with Syria, and within there they had this hire
[9:37] Speaker 1: isis as their security. Anyway, in the one year they
[9:41] Speaker 1: worked in Syria, they made seventy million dollars in revenue.
[9:45] Speaker 1: When they pled guilty, they paid a seven hundred and
[9:48] Speaker 1: seventy eight million dollar fine. It was a company defining charge.
[9:53] Speaker 1: And so a long way to say this, companies that
[9:56] Speaker 1: provide assistance to cartels. Unnotice that they could be facing
[10:03] Speaker 1: the charges of providing material support to terrorism. So the
[10:07] Speaker 1: argument I think is this is another incredibly powerful way
[10:12] Speaker 1: to maybe finally disrupt and dismantled cortels.
[10:15] Speaker 2: In the initial twenty twenty indictment of Maduro, there was
[10:20] Speaker 2: a claim that he was the leader of the Cartel
[10:22] Speaker 2: de la Solos, but that allegation is missing from the
[10:26] Speaker 2: current indictment.
[10:29] Speaker 1: So in the current indictment they talk about the Cartel
[10:32] Speaker 1: de la Solos the Cartels of the Sun, which is
[10:35] Speaker 1: an organization in Venezuela that really involved the higher military
[10:40] Speaker 1: part of Venezuela. But you're right when it comes to
[10:43] Speaker 1: the drug trafficking activity and tying it to a terrorist
[10:49] Speaker 1: group or terrorist activity, they really focus on trender Agua,
[10:54] Speaker 1: the FARC, which is that Columbian terrorist organization, and a
[10:57] Speaker 1: couple of Mexican cartels. They mentioned the Cartel de la Solos,
[11:02] Speaker 1: but they don't mention it in that Vein Interestingly, though,
[11:06] Speaker 1: June in November of last year, which I found to
[11:09] Speaker 1: be interesting, the Secretary of State declared the Cartel del
[11:12] Speaker 1: Solos a foreign terrist organization, And so you know, I
[11:16] Speaker 1: don't know if that was done in anticipation of this
[11:19] Speaker 1: indictment coming down in January, but that is an interesting
[11:22] Speaker 1: thing that the Secretary of State has done. I think
[11:25] Speaker 1: it's another indication for companies and for those doing business
[11:29] Speaker 1: in Venezuela stay away, of course from the Mexican cartels
[11:32] Speaker 1: and trend Agua, but also stay away from Cartel de
[11:35] Speaker 1: la Solos.
[11:36] Speaker 2: Stay with me coming up next, Why the judge refused
[11:39] Speaker 2: to dismiss the case against Maduro. I'm June Grosso and
[11:43] Speaker 2: this is Bloomberg. Ousted Venezuela and leader Nicolas Maduro and
[11:49] Speaker 2: his wife appeared in a Manhattan federal court Thursday, as
[11:53] Speaker 2: the US is pushing forward with a broad drug trafficking
[11:57] Speaker 2: and narco terrorism conspiracy case against him. Prosecutors claimed that Maduro,
[12:03] Speaker 2: who was seized by the US military on January third,
[12:07] Speaker 2: played a key role in a conspiracy to traffic cocaine
[12:11] Speaker 2: in the US. They also allege that he and others
[12:14] Speaker 2: partnered with groups designated by the US as foreign terrorist organizations,
[12:20] Speaker 2: and that he sought to enrich himself while serving in
[12:23] Speaker 2: government more than a quarter of a century. An early
[12:26] Speaker 2: flashpoint in the case is that Maduro claims the US
[12:30] Speaker 2: is preventing him from receiving money from the government in
[12:33] Speaker 2: Caracas to pay his legal defense. I've been talking to
[12:37] Speaker 2: a former US attorney, Alumdar Hamdani, tell us what the
[12:42] Speaker 2: prosecution would have to prove to get a jury to
[12:45] Speaker 2: return a conviction on the narco terrorism charge.
[12:49] Speaker 1: You know, if I'm preparing my case against Maduro in
[12:55] Speaker 1: this endement, I'm gonna be looking at a couple of things.
[12:56] Speaker 1: First of all, like I said, I've got to prove
[12:59] Speaker 1: that only does Maduro and the other five co defendants
[13:03] Speaker 1: part of a large drug conspiracy, but I've also got
[13:07] Speaker 1: to prove that that drug conspiracy financially benefited terrorists and
[13:13] Speaker 1: terrorist activity. And so as a prosecutor, I am looking
[13:17] Speaker 1: at several things. First of all, I'm going to be
[13:19] Speaker 1: looking at witnesses. Those are going to be the biggest
[13:22] Speaker 1: part of my case, because how do I get into
[13:24] Speaker 1: the head of a Maduro. How do I get into
[13:27] Speaker 1: the head of Maduro's wife and his son and others
[13:30] Speaker 1: high up in the government. The best way I can
[13:33] Speaker 1: do that is through the testimony of cooperators. That, of course,
[13:38] Speaker 1: also brings itself a whole host of risks. And in
[13:41] Speaker 1: this case, I talked about two former co defendants pleading guilty,
[13:45] Speaker 1: which is good for the government but also adds a
[13:49] Speaker 1: layer of risk for the government. If I'm the defense,
[13:51] Speaker 1: what I'm going to be doing is really concentrating on
[13:54] Speaker 1: those two former co defendants and the deals they got,
[13:57] Speaker 1: and then really harping on the fact that you know,
[14:00] Speaker 1: they were also part of the drug activity, and so
[14:02] Speaker 1: why should we believe them in what they're saying. They're
[14:04] Speaker 1: just trying to save themselves. In addition to that, because
[14:08] Speaker 1: this is, you know, a foreign jurisdiction, my guess is,
[14:12] Speaker 1: and I do not know this, but my guess is,
[14:13] Speaker 1: there are, of course foreign wire taps. They're going to
[14:17] Speaker 1: have to be that only looked at, but also protected
[14:20] Speaker 1: if need be. My guess is the Central Intelligence Agency
[14:23] Speaker 1: is probably very active and has been active in that area.
[14:26] Speaker 1: So there's going to be sources that I may use
[14:29] Speaker 1: if the CIO will let me, and if not, I
[14:32] Speaker 1: have to figure out how to protect. And those are
[14:34] Speaker 1: the added complexities of dealing with especially national security issues.
[14:39] Speaker 1: You know, if I'm a prosecutor, what I'm looking at
[14:41] Speaker 1: is two things. First of all, how do I make
[14:43] Speaker 1: my drug case I got that. Secondly, how do I
[14:47] Speaker 1: tie him to terrorist activity? Okay, I got that, And
[14:50] Speaker 1: there's another account that talks about machine guns. I think
[14:53] Speaker 1: I'm pretty good by proving that he had machine guns.
[14:56] Speaker 1: But the other part that gives me heartburn when I
[14:58] Speaker 1: stay up at night is what else is all out there?
[15:02] Speaker 1: For example, you know, is there information in the CIA's
[15:05] Speaker 1: files that I've not seen? Is there information in the
[15:08] Speaker 1: NSA's files I've not seen? Is there information that a
[15:11] Speaker 1: foreign government provided to us that I've not seen as
[15:14] Speaker 1: a prosecutor, And how is that going to affect my case?
[15:17] Speaker 1: And if it, for example, helps the defense, that I
[15:20] Speaker 1: have a constitucial obligation to provide that to the defense,
[15:24] Speaker 1: And how do I provide that and still protect sources
[15:27] Speaker 1: and methods And those are all the different things I'm
[15:29] Speaker 1: thinking of as a prosecutor as I walking through this case.
[15:32] Speaker 2: There have been very few convictions in the twenty year
[15:35] Speaker 2: history of the Narco Terrorism Statute. So do you think
[15:40] Speaker 2: this is an uphill battle for prosecutors.
[15:43] Speaker 4: Yeah?
[15:43] Speaker 1: I think generally in a case like this, it is
[15:47] Speaker 1: always going to be a sophisticated, complex case, which makes
[15:52] Speaker 1: it difficult. Right if I'm a prosecutor, but you know,
[15:55] Speaker 1: on all the terrorism cases I prosecuted, I can tell
[15:59] Speaker 1: you going I knew they were difficult, even though the
[16:02] Speaker 1: facts may be simple, because I'm dealing with issues, you know,
[16:06] Speaker 1: like terrorists, I'm dealing with classified issues. There's complexities that
[16:10] Speaker 1: are already built in. So that's the kind of case
[16:12] Speaker 1: the prosecutors will have now in their endeement, they were
[16:15] Speaker 1: careful to name several different terrorist groups, foreign terrorist organizations
[16:20] Speaker 1: in fact. And one thing that's I think company if
[16:23] Speaker 1: I'm a prosecutor in this statute is I do not
[16:26] Speaker 1: have to prove that Maduro financially benefited or financially helped
[16:31] Speaker 1: a foreign terrorist organization like the ones we talked about earlier,
[16:35] Speaker 1: but just that his dealings in cocaine, for example, financially
[16:40] Speaker 1: benefited terrorist activity. Now, the reason I mentioned foreign terrorist
[16:44] Speaker 1: organizations because to a jury, that's a simple leap to make.
[16:47] Speaker 1: If I'm talking about trend de Aguar and it is
[16:50] Speaker 1: already designated as a foreign terrorist organization, then it's a
[16:53] Speaker 1: small leap to make for me to say and because
[16:57] Speaker 1: that cocaine activity benefited that organization than it benefited terrorist activity,
[17:02] Speaker 1: and the easiest one, of course, is the Fark because
[17:05] Speaker 1: of its proximity to Venezuela, the next door neighbor in Colombia.
[17:09] Speaker 1: So as a prosecutor, this is going to be a
[17:12] Speaker 1: long trial. It's going to be one where the defense
[17:15] Speaker 1: is really going to attack the credibility of the witnesses
[17:17] Speaker 1: I've put up to corroborate the evidence I have. But
[17:21] Speaker 1: it's one that I'm going to be ready for. And
[17:23] Speaker 1: in this case, unlike many districts, the Southern dishrit of
[17:26] Speaker 1: New York has an embarrassment of riches and really good prosecutors.
[17:31] Speaker 1: But also because unlike the Southern District of Texas, where
[17:35] Speaker 1: that district had more indictments than any other district in
[17:39] Speaker 1: the country. And why is that Because there's so many
[17:41] Speaker 1: immigration crimes and low level drug crimes that come across
[17:44] Speaker 1: that border. So because of that, the prosecutors I had
[17:47] Speaker 1: were usually either one or two on a case. It's
[17:50] Speaker 1: tough to put more than two people in a case,
[17:52] Speaker 1: even a complex case. In the Southern District of New York.
[17:55] Speaker 1: There are four assistant US attorneys on this case. That
[17:58] Speaker 1: tells you something, that tells you that this office has
[18:01] Speaker 1: dedicated four of its best prosecutors onto this case, and
[18:05] Speaker 1: so you know, again it's one that's not insturmentable. It's
[18:08] Speaker 1: one that's going to be always tough, and it's one
[18:10] Speaker 1: to if I'm the defense counsel, that I'm always going
[18:13] Speaker 1: to be worried about.
[18:14] Speaker 2: Maduro was expected to mount several defenses before trial, one
[18:18] Speaker 2: being that he's immune as a head of state, another
[18:22] Speaker 2: that he was kidnapped and taken into custody illegally in
[18:27] Speaker 2: violation of international law. Do you think any of those
[18:31] Speaker 2: will be successful? I don't think they've fared well in
[18:34] Speaker 2: other cases.
[18:36] Speaker 1: I don't think legally. I don't think the judge is
[18:38] Speaker 1: going to dismiss the case because of the head of
[18:41] Speaker 1: state immuney issue for the reasons I stated, for example,
[18:43] Speaker 1: because of how they've drafted as indeminded and how they've
[18:46] Speaker 1: characterized Maduro, and on the issue you know, of how
[18:51] Speaker 1: he was captured. It's always been a longstanding principle that
[18:54] Speaker 1: how somebody gets to the courtroom is ruly of no
[18:57] Speaker 1: consequence when it comes to the ability of the charges,
[19:01] Speaker 1: and that's going to be the case here, I believe
[19:03] Speaker 1: as well. Now prosecutors aren't immune from something called jury nullification.
[19:09] Speaker 1: I mean that is the idea that you know, no
[19:10] Speaker 1: matter what the evidence is put on at trial, because
[19:14] Speaker 1: of a reason such as there's an overriding sympathy or
[19:18] Speaker 1: an overriding you know, maybe an injustice that the jury feels,
[19:22] Speaker 1: they will still rule against the United States. And so
[19:25] Speaker 1: jury nullification is always a concern for prosecuted and so
[19:29] Speaker 1: the defense will probably bring up and try to bring
[19:31] Speaker 1: up I mean, the prosecutes will try to stop to
[19:33] Speaker 1: some happening, but they will bring up, Hey, my guy
[19:35] Speaker 1: was taken out of Venezuela, kidnapped by you know, by
[19:40] Speaker 1: the military, and taken to a court in Manhattan. He
[19:43] Speaker 1: was the leader of his nation and thrown into a
[19:46] Speaker 1: prison in Manhattan, and they will try to use that
[19:50] Speaker 1: to of course make a jury nullification argument. But I
[19:53] Speaker 1: think legally the case will survive those two issues.
[19:57] Speaker 2: Wayne Maduro and his wife appeared in court on Thursday.
[20:01] Speaker 2: There was an argument about why the US government was
[20:05] Speaker 2: preventing him from getting money from the Venezuelan government to
[20:11] Speaker 2: pay for his legal defense, and the judge said he
[20:13] Speaker 2: wasn't going to dismiss the case, but he questioned why
[20:17] Speaker 2: federal prosecutors weren't allowing the Venezuelan government to give him
[20:22] Speaker 2: money for the legal fees.
[20:24] Speaker 1: So, you know, let's go back and fundamentally look at
[20:27] Speaker 1: who Maduro is and his wife. Who they are. They
[20:30] Speaker 1: are criminal defendants in a US court of law, brought
[20:35] Speaker 1: in under a US indictment. So they have, like everybody,
[20:38] Speaker 1: six amn rights, and that six Amendment right. The most
[20:41] Speaker 1: basic one of those basic rights is you have the
[20:43] Speaker 1: right to your choice of counsel. So the argument being
[20:47] Speaker 1: made by the defense in this particular case is, hey, look,
[20:50] Speaker 1: Maduro and his wife want to hire us as their council.
[20:54] Speaker 1: They have chosen us to be their counsel. The problem
[20:57] Speaker 1: is the funds that it would take to pay you know,
[21:01] Speaker 1: would be paid for by Venezuela and Venezuela. I'm assuming
[21:04] Speaker 1: the government of Venezuela is willing to fund the defense
[21:08] Speaker 1: of Maduro and his wife, despite how they're maybe being
[21:12] Speaker 1: friendly to the United States right now. That said, the
[21:14] Speaker 1: government of Venezuela is willing to pay those defense costs
[21:18] Speaker 1: the government of the United States. That the prosecutor has
[21:20] Speaker 1: come back and said, wait a second, Wait a second,
[21:23] Speaker 1: Venezuela is a sanctioned country and you need an OPAC
[21:28] Speaker 1: license an officer Foreign Asset Control license issued by the
[21:32] Speaker 1: Department of Treasury to do anything to get anything paid
[21:35] Speaker 1: for by Venezuela to deal with Venezuela. What was interesting
[21:39] Speaker 1: in this case, a few days after he was arrested,
[21:41] Speaker 1: O Fact actually granted a license for the defense to
[21:45] Speaker 1: go ahead and use funds from Venezuela for Venezuela to
[21:49] Speaker 1: pay for his defense. Then a few days later, Oh
[21:52] Speaker 1: Fact reverse course, and the government's now arguing, oh, that
[21:55] Speaker 1: was an era that wasn't supposed to happen, and so
[21:58] Speaker 1: that the basic argument by the defense is because we
[22:01] Speaker 1: can't have access to those funds we as lawyers, and
[22:04] Speaker 1: because Madua can't have access to those funds, Madua can't
[22:07] Speaker 1: use and can't choose the council of his choice. The
[22:10] Speaker 1: government's response is, these are sanctioned funds. This is a
[22:13] Speaker 1: slush fund created by you. Madua. You don't get access
[22:16] Speaker 1: to your own slush fund. And secondly, Maduro, you have
[22:20] Speaker 1: access to the Federal Defender's office if you want, you
[22:24] Speaker 1: get access to free counsel. And then the argument by
[22:27] Speaker 1: the defense is you're going to overwhelm that Federal Defender's
[22:30] Speaker 1: office with this one case, and you know, they should
[22:33] Speaker 1: have the counsel of their choice. So it's a very
[22:35] Speaker 1: interesting argument. They've asked actually the court to dismiss the
[22:38] Speaker 1: case because of that. The Court's not willing to dismiss
[22:41] Speaker 1: the case, I don't think because of that, but they've
[22:45] Speaker 1: got to find some sort of solution. Like you said,
[22:47] Speaker 1: they expressed a concern about, you know, if Maduro's out already,
[22:53] Speaker 1: what's the national security concern for the o fact license?
[22:57] Speaker 1: And if Venezuela is cooperating with the United States, you know,
[23:00] Speaker 1: with from all extraction, you know, having his vice president
[23:04] Speaker 1: take over, then you know, what is the national security
[23:07] Speaker 1: concern in general? So those are the arguments that are
[23:09] Speaker 1: coming out. Interesting, fascinating case. You know, as I thought
[23:13] Speaker 1: through this case, and one of the things as I
[23:15] Speaker 1: think through the future is you know, how will not
[23:18] Speaker 1: only this administration of course, use the Naucuo Terrorism Statute,
[23:22] Speaker 1: but how would other administrations use the Naco Terrorism Statute
[23:26] Speaker 1: to dislodge dictators, to dislodge what they consider to be
[23:30] Speaker 1: a legitimate leader. So one of the things about this
[23:33] Speaker 1: case that's interesting is I think dictators and despots of
[23:37] Speaker 1: the future be unnotice that the United States may come
[23:41] Speaker 1: after you, not with a war, but maybe with an indictment,
[23:46] Speaker 1: you know, brought out by the Southern dishitt of New York.
[23:48] Speaker 2: Thanks so much for joining me on the show. That's
[23:51] Speaker 2: former US attorney Alum dar haam Dani, a partner at Bracewell,
[23:55] Speaker 2: coming up next on the Bloomberg Law Show. The courts
[23:58] Speaker 2: are asking for more money for security measures to defend
[24:04] Speaker 2: federal judges from increasing threats. I'm June Grosso and you're
[24:08] Speaker 2: listening to Bloomberg. Court officials are asking Congress for more
[24:13] Speaker 2: money next year for security measures as the federal judiciary
[24:18] Speaker 2: combats heightened threats to judges. Officials say these security efforts
[24:23] Speaker 2: are quote more urgent than ever before because security incidents
[24:29] Speaker 2: of significant concern for judges increased by fifty seven percent
[24:34] Speaker 2: last year and are on pace to rise again. Joining
[24:38] Speaker 2: me is Bloomberg Law reporter Suzanne Monnac. Susanne tell us
[24:42] Speaker 2: what the court officials are asking for and why.
[24:46] Speaker 5: Every year around this time of year, we will see,
[24:49] Speaker 5: you know, federal agencies and in this case, we're seeing
[24:51] Speaker 5: the federal judiciary put in their request for what would
[24:53] Speaker 5: be like there for post wish list of funding that
[24:55] Speaker 5: they'd like to receive for next fiscal year, which starts
[24:58] Speaker 5: October first. It feels a a little crazy given that
[25:00] Speaker 5: we haven't even fully funded the government for this fiscal year.
[25:03] Speaker 5: Of course, we are still in a partial shutdown, but
[25:05] Speaker 5: we are already looking ahead, and for the judiciary, court
[25:08] Speaker 5: security is one of its top priorities, because, of course
[25:11] Speaker 5: you mentioned we're seeing sort of a rising and heightened
[25:13] Speaker 5: threat environment for judges. It's something we're really hearing sitting
[25:16] Speaker 5: judges talk more and more about. And judges don't speak
[25:19] Speaker 5: publicly that often, but the judiciary has said that, you know,
[25:22] Speaker 5: threats to the court and judicial independence are on the
[25:24] Speaker 5: list of things that they can speak publicly about, and
[25:27] Speaker 5: we are starting to see judges kind of increasingly avail
[25:29] Speaker 5: themselves at that and talk about threats that they're receiving
[25:32] Speaker 5: unsolicited pizza deliveries to their door as a signal that
[25:35] Speaker 5: the sender knows where the judge lives, to their personal residents.
[25:38] Speaker 5: Sometimes those pizzas have been in the name of Daniel Anderol,
[25:40] Speaker 5: who is the son of a New Jersey federal judge
[25:42] Speaker 5: who was killed almost six years ago by a disferential
[25:45] Speaker 5: attorney posing as a delivery man, and so you know,
[25:48] Speaker 5: we were seeing this increase in threats to judges. A
[25:50] Speaker 5: lot of it's driven by social media, and so the
[25:52] Speaker 5: Judiciary accordingly has requested a small increase about three percent
[25:56] Speaker 5: over current levels, almost a billion dollars nine hundred and
[25:59] Speaker 5: twenty million for courthouse security measures next fiscal year. That's
[26:02] Speaker 5: going to go towards things like the court security officers
[26:05] Speaker 5: that you see when you enter a courthouse, by the
[26:07] Speaker 5: metal detectors or who monitor the courtrooms, and as well
[26:10] Speaker 5: as fixing broken equipment or outdated equipment in courthouses themselves,
[26:14] Speaker 5: like Badgin are security cameras, those types of equipment.
[26:18] Speaker 2: Interesting, there's a pilot program to actually have the Marshal
[26:23] Speaker 2: Service protect federal courthouse grounds instead of the Department of
[26:28] Speaker 2: Homeland Security, and it's the Marshal Service that provides security
[26:33] Speaker 2: for judges, so it makes.
[26:34] Speaker 4: Sense, that's right.
[26:36] Speaker 5: It's somewhat of a consolidation in these different security measures
[26:40] Speaker 5: for judges, which is weirdly in a way, maybe somewhat
[26:43] Speaker 5: oddly for those who haven't followed this issue, split across
[26:45] Speaker 5: multiple departments. So we're seeing the judiciary obviously handle some
[26:49] Speaker 5: court security issues when it comes to replacing infrastructure in courthouses.
[26:53] Speaker 5: They have Court security officers, but they sort of share
[26:55] Speaker 5: a funding with the US Martial Service, which is part
[26:57] Speaker 5: of the Justice Department, that really takes a lead. Their
[27:00] Speaker 5: primary mission is the protection of the federal judiciary. But
[27:03] Speaker 5: then we have this third body involved, which is the
[27:05] Speaker 5: Department of Homeland Security's Federal Protective Service, and they handle
[27:08] Speaker 5: like the perimeter around the courthouse. And I you know,
[27:11] Speaker 5: from speaking with former marshals and people who have used
[27:15] Speaker 5: to be involved in court security, you know there's always
[27:18] Speaker 5: going to be communication breakdowns, are issues when you have
[27:20] Speaker 5: that many.
[27:21] Speaker 4: Cooks in the kitchen.
[27:22] Speaker 5: And so I think the Judiciary is considering this idea,
[27:24] Speaker 5: and they've this pilot program is you know, predates this
[27:27] Speaker 5: budget request. They're saying that they would like to continue
[27:29] Speaker 5: it where the marshals will be taking over for FPS
[27:33] Speaker 5: in that specific area, just to kind of create more
[27:35] Speaker 5: and more continuity.
[27:36] Speaker 2: There were multiple cyber attacks explain what they're trying to
[27:41] Speaker 2: do there.
[27:42] Speaker 5: Absolutely, the Judiciary faced a cyber attack last year that
[27:47] Speaker 5: had involved the case management system and you know, it
[27:52] Speaker 5: potentially sealed records that shouldn't have been accessed and Obviously,
[27:56] Speaker 5: cyber has been a priority for you know, across the
[27:59] Speaker 5: federal government and shoring up cybersystems, and so that's an
[28:02] Speaker 5: area where we see the Judiciary trying to boost their
[28:05] Speaker 5: resources toward as well. They're asking for money for a
[28:08] Speaker 5: new case management system ten million dollars. The Judiciary's current
[28:12] Speaker 5: case management system, if you've ever seen it online, is
[28:14] Speaker 5: not particularly modern. They're also looking for more money nearly
[28:18] Speaker 5: fifty million dollars for an ongoing cybersecurity and IT modernization
[28:22] Speaker 5: plan to just kind of continue.
[28:24] Speaker 4: That work to combat cyber attacks.
[28:25] Speaker 5: So we are seeing the judiciary make that a security
[28:28] Speaker 5: priority as well.
[28:29] Speaker 2: This may seem odd to people, but it's the judiciary
[28:33] Speaker 2: that funds the Federal Public Defender's Office, so they want
[28:38] Speaker 2: more money there too as well.
[28:40] Speaker 4: That's right.
[28:40] Speaker 5: The federal defenders have really been cast strapped lately. And yes,
[28:43] Speaker 5: as you mentioned, it's one of those situations where the
[28:45] Speaker 5: judiciary funds the public defenders, but of course the prosecutors
[28:48] Speaker 5: on the other side of the courtroom are funded by
[28:50] Speaker 5: the Justice Department and are typically better funded than the
[28:53] Speaker 5: federal defenders. The federal defenders really faced a crunch last
[28:56] Speaker 5: year after the judiciary ran out of money for what's
[28:59] Speaker 5: done is the Criminal Justice Act Panel, and those are
[29:01] Speaker 5: private attorneys who agreed to take on certain cases that
[29:04] Speaker 5: the public defenders might be doing where the defenders cannot.
[29:07] Speaker 4: So that might be, for example, a case.
[29:09] Speaker 5: With multiple defendants, so the public defenders can take one
[29:12] Speaker 5: of them, but they'd have a conflict of interest in
[29:13] Speaker 5: representing the rest of the group. So that would be
[29:15] Speaker 5: a good example where we'd see the CGA panel come in.
[29:18] Speaker 5: Those attorneys are often small firms, even solo practitioners, and
[29:21] Speaker 5: they were left for months pronting their own expenses for witnesses, transcripts, everything,
[29:26] Speaker 5: not to mention their own hourly fees. So we saw
[29:29] Speaker 5: them in quite a bad situation financially last year. That
[29:32] Speaker 5: raised a lot of alarm within the judiciary. Thankfully, they
[29:35] Speaker 5: were repaid back in the fall, but there is concern
[29:38] Speaker 5: that this could happen again if they run out of
[29:40] Speaker 5: funds again and Congress isn't able to give them new
[29:43] Speaker 5: ones in time, and so they proposed a small eptic
[29:45] Speaker 5: and funding in an effort to address that.
[29:48] Speaker 2: I mean, on the whole, does Congress usually give the
[29:50] Speaker 2: judiciary what it asked for in these budget requests.
[29:54] Speaker 4: We've been seeing that. Recently.
[29:55] Speaker 5: We saw Congress, for example, match the judiciary's court security
[29:58] Speaker 5: request past year. I think the challenge for the Judiciary
[30:02] Speaker 5: and really for all of the government is that Congress
[30:04] Speaker 5: has a hard time passing funding bills on time, and
[30:06] Speaker 5: so there have been situations where the government say shuts
[30:09] Speaker 5: down for several months. That's already happened multiple times, and
[30:12] Speaker 5: that really aggravated the situation for the CGA Panel lawyers.
[30:15] Speaker 5: They ran out of money in the summer, thinking they
[30:17] Speaker 5: only had to make it to the end of the
[30:18] Speaker 5: fiscal year, ended up getting pushed into November.
[30:21] Speaker 4: So that's been one challenge.
[30:22] Speaker 5: And of course we're also seeing these continuing resolutions where
[30:25] Speaker 5: say inflation increases, the judiciary needs an increase at the
[30:29] Speaker 5: end of every year, saying, as you may get a
[30:30] Speaker 5: cola bump on your salary, and instead we have a
[30:33] Speaker 5: continuing resolution or just a stopgap measure that extends current funds.
[30:37] Speaker 4: The judiciary or anyone would say.
[30:39] Speaker 5: That that's an effective budget cut given inflation to have
[30:41] Speaker 5: funding the same. So some of it has just been
[30:43] Speaker 5: the challenge of Congress getting bills passed in a time.
[30:46] Speaker 2: Of manner Suzam. Before I let you go, I want
[30:48] Speaker 2: you to tell us about this interesting court struggle where
[30:52] Speaker 2: the Justice Department told a federal appeals court that a
[30:56] Speaker 2: government lawyer shouldn't have been penalized for ice violating court
[31:02] Speaker 2: orders because he doesn't control the agency.
[31:06] Speaker 5: The issues stemmed from what you may remember, Operation Metro Surge,
[31:10] Speaker 5: where we saw this heightened immigration enforcement presence across the country,
[31:13] Speaker 5: but really in particular, we saw it kind of reached
[31:16] Speaker 5: new heights in Minnesota, where, of course we saw the
[31:18] Speaker 5: killing of two American citizens by federal immigration agents, a
[31:22] Speaker 5: lot of protests, just a lot of chaos around the
[31:24] Speaker 5: immigration presence there. Related to that immigration enforcement action, naturally,
[31:29] Speaker 5: we saw a number of people being detained in Minnesota,
[31:32] Speaker 5: immigrants being held in immigration attention, and as a result,
[31:35] Speaker 5: we saw sort of a surge in filings known as habeas,
[31:38] Speaker 5: petitions for them to be released from detention. That's both
[31:41] Speaker 5: because of the enforcement actions and because of an interpretation
[31:44] Speaker 5: the federal government the Trump administration has been using regarding
[31:48] Speaker 5: the detention statutes, so justified detaining more people as opposed
[31:52] Speaker 5: to allowing some people to be released pending proceedings. So
[31:55] Speaker 5: we sort of had that combination where we had this
[31:58] Speaker 5: surge of case filings and that has overwhelmed the US
[32:01] Speaker 5: Attorney's Office, the federal prosecutors in Minnesota, and it kind
[32:04] Speaker 5: of created a bit of this perfect storm for the
[32:07] Speaker 5: office where we saw a Minnesota federal judge held a
[32:10] Speaker 5: special Assistant US Attorney in a civil contempt at court
[32:14] Speaker 5: because an order wasn't followed, and a detained immigrant who
[32:16] Speaker 5: was supposed to be released in Minnesota with his driver's
[32:20] Speaker 5: license identification documents was released in Texas with none of
[32:23] Speaker 5: those documents, obviously leaving him in a very difficult position
[32:26] Speaker 5: to be released in a state where you don't know
[32:28] Speaker 5: anybody potentially and don't even have your driver's license.
[32:32] Speaker 2: And this occurrence wasn't a one off. The judge gave
[32:36] Speaker 2: an order about where the immigrant had to be released
[32:39] Speaker 2: and the papers he had to be released with, because
[32:43] Speaker 2: it's happened so many times that ICE releases an immigrant
[32:47] Speaker 2: from the facility they're being held in and that could
[32:50] Speaker 2: be across the country from where they live or where
[32:53] Speaker 2: they were arrested, and without their personal belongings or papers.
[32:58] Speaker 2: So this isn't an isolation needed incident.
[33:01] Speaker 4: Yeah, far from it.
[33:02] Speaker 5: We've seen federal judges express a lot of frustration at
[33:05] Speaker 5: ice for their lack of compliance. You could argue with
[33:09] Speaker 5: some of these orders, we're seeing government attorneys saying, we're overwhelmed,
[33:13] Speaker 5: We're doing our best, and so that's been a dynamic
[33:16] Speaker 5: that we're seeing in federal courts across the country. And
[33:18] Speaker 5: in Minnesota, which as I mentioned, really saw this increase
[33:20] Speaker 5: in enforcement and arrests and attentions, we saw the chief
[33:23] Speaker 5: judge of that court specifically call out the government for
[33:26] Speaker 5: having violated It was something like over one hundred court orders.
[33:30] Speaker 4: In these immigration habeas cases.
[33:31] Speaker 5: So well, what did make this unique was that had
[33:34] Speaker 5: risen to the level of the judge actually holding an
[33:36] Speaker 5: individual lawyer in civil contempt a court we'd seen judges
[33:40] Speaker 5: threatened to do so and say, if you don't follow
[33:42] Speaker 5: this order, rectify the situation by the state. You know,
[33:45] Speaker 5: I'm going to have content proceedings. But in that case
[33:47] Speaker 5: the agency has usually you know, gone and fixed the issue.
[33:50] Speaker 5: But in this case of what made it somewhat unique
[33:52] Speaker 5: was that the lawyer was held in civil contempt. Of course,
[33:55] Speaker 5: the issue was rectified pretty quickly and he never actually
[33:57] Speaker 5: ended up needing to pay any fines unless there was
[34:00] Speaker 5: still a contempt order, and that's what's now currently on appeal.
[34:04] Speaker 2: What's unusual to me is the government in its response
[34:08] Speaker 2: brief saying that, you know, the attorney doesn't control the
[34:13] Speaker 2: ICE agency, which is true, but the attorney has a
[34:17] Speaker 2: responsibility to the court that it's representing its client and
[34:22] Speaker 2: that it is conveying to its client orders.
[34:26] Speaker 4: Absolutely.
[34:26] Speaker 5: I think it's an interesting argument, and I think it's
[34:29] Speaker 5: a unique circumstance. You know, to have to have it
[34:31] Speaker 5: go as far as the judge holding a government lawyer
[34:33] Speaker 5: in civil contempt, to have the you know, contempt order purged,
[34:37] Speaker 5: as they say, when the ideas were returned to the
[34:39] Speaker 5: detained I regranting question, but to have the Justice Department
[34:42] Speaker 5: still go ahead and appeal it to the Federal appeals Court.
[34:45] Speaker 5: Just it's an interesting posture just as it stands, and
[34:48] Speaker 5: it is an interesting argument that essentially, as you recap
[34:51] Speaker 5: that the Justice Department is making the claim that you know,
[34:54] Speaker 5: this lawyer who's actually a military lawyer has been detailed
[34:57] Speaker 5: to the Minnesota US Attorney's office to handle these cases,
[35:00] Speaker 5: cannot guarantee agency compliance and shouldn't be essentially expected.
[35:05] Speaker 2: To since the contempt order has been purged. What are
[35:09] Speaker 2: they appealing?
[35:10] Speaker 5: That's what is one of the threshold issues here in
[35:12] Speaker 5: this brief. Essentially they appealed, the other side moved to
[35:15] Speaker 5: dismiss and now the Justice Department it sort of previewed
[35:18] Speaker 5: its merits argument for us in this latest brief. But
[35:20] Speaker 5: it's also essentially dealing with a threshold problem, which is
[35:23] Speaker 5: that the other side is saying that they shouldn't even
[35:25] Speaker 5: have authority to appeal since the order has been purged.
[35:29] Speaker 5: They're making the argument that it was essentially not this
[35:31] Speaker 5: individual lawyer. His name is Matthew is Ahara. It was
[35:34] Speaker 5: essentially not his decision to decide to resolve the contempt
[35:39] Speaker 5: order in that way. Generally speaking, if you disagree with
[35:42] Speaker 5: the contempt order, you could appeal it or you could
[35:44] Speaker 5: abide by it. And I think the other side had
[35:47] Speaker 5: made the argument that there is no contempt order now
[35:49] Speaker 5: to appeal it was purged. They're making the claim that
[35:52] Speaker 5: Ice was the one who remedied this. This lawyer Iahara
[35:56] Speaker 5: is not the one who made that decision, so he
[35:58] Speaker 5: should still have the right to appeal it for him self.
[36:00] Speaker 5: Warning about potential professional consequences that they're saying could follow
[36:04] Speaker 5: him in his career, given that he had this order
[36:07] Speaker 5: once ordered against him, particularly related to security clearance as
[36:10] Speaker 5: he's a military lawyer as well as too just you know,
[36:13] Speaker 5: should he want to be applying for a bars or
[36:15] Speaker 5: something like that.
[36:16] Speaker 2: I'm so interested to hear what the Eighth Circuit decides
[36:20] Speaker 2: in this case. Thanks so much for joining me, Suzanne.
[36:24] Speaker 2: That's Bloomberg Law reporter Suzanne Monyac, and that's it for
[36:27] Speaker 2: this edition of The Bloomberg Law Show. Remember you can
[36:30] Speaker 2: always get the latest legal news on our Bloomberg Law podcast.
[36:34] Speaker 2: You can find them on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and at
[36:37] Speaker 2: www dot Bloomberg dot com, slash podcast slash Law, and
[36:42] Speaker 2: remember to tune into The Bloomberg Law Show every weeknight
[36:45] Speaker 2: at ten pm Wall Street Time. I'm June Grosso and
[36:49] Speaker 2: you're listening to Bloomberg

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