Nicolas Maduro

As has been widely reported, Nicolás Maduro has moved to dismiss the criminal charges of narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, and weapons-related offenses brought against him in the Southern District of New York, because the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela has not been able to pay the fees of the high-profile lawyer Maduro has chosen: Barry J. Pollack. At this point, Maduro is not asking the federal court in Manhattan to declare him innocent. What he is asking for right now is something narrower, but still potentially powerful: he wants the court to dismiss the criminal charges against him because, according to his lawyers, the United States is blocking the money he says is needed to pay the lawyer he chose to defend him.

That sounds technical, but not necessarily complicated. In a criminal case in the US, a defendant has a constitutional right to a fair chance to defend himself. Part of that right, in many circumstances, includes the right to be represented by counsel of his own choosing, so long as that lawyer is qualified and there is no conflict. Maduro says the government, through OFAC sanctions, first allowed his lawyer, Pollack, to be paid by the Venezuelan state and then quickly reversed itself, leaving him unable to fund the defense he wants. Maduro’s motion to dismiss the charges says that this kind of interference violates the Sixth Amendment and due process (protected by the Constitution of the United States).

The criminal case itself is serious and very concrete. It alleges that for years senior Venezuelan officials worked with major criminal and armed organizations to move large quantities of cocaine toward the United States. The indictment also names Cilia Flores de Maduro, Diosdado Cabello Rondón, Ramón Rodríguez Chacín, Nicolás Ernesto Maduro Guerra, and Héctor Rusthenford Guerrero Flores (the main leader of Tren de Aragua).

The present legal dispute is over whether the United States can prosecute Maduro while at the same time prevent the funding arrangement on which his chosen defense depends. That is why Maduro’s motion relies so heavily on the case of United States v. Stein, the Second Circuit case decided in 2006, cited as 435 F.Supp.2d 330 (S.D.N.Y. 2006), which affirmed dismissal after government pressure effectively cut off payment of legal fees by a third party. That precedent does not mean Maduro automatically wins, but it is not a frivolous citation either. It is the strongest case he has at this point.

An unusual case

Barry Pollack, Maduro’s lawyer, is not just any lawyer. He is a well-known white collar and national security defense attorney, and he represented Julian Assange and negotiated the plea agreement that secured Assange’s release. Maduro is not complaining about the quality of available appointed counsel (public defenders) in the abstract. He is claiming a right to keep the specific lawyer he retained.

Still, Maduro’s argument has an obvious weakness. The money he wants to use is not his own personal money. It is money that the current Venezuelan authorities, i.e., Delcy Eloina Rodriguez et al., say they are willing to use for his defense, and Maduro’s defense says Venezuelan law and practice require that support.

But that underlying proposition is not something the New York court necessarily has to decide in any definitive way. The judge may conclude that even if there is a dispute under Venezuelan public law about whether the Republic should pay to defend a former ruler accused of running a criminal enterprise, that is not the immediate federal constitutional question before him. The immediate question is narrower: has the United States, by its own OFAC sanctions, interfered with Maduro’s ability to have the lawyer of his choice?

Can the Executive Branch of the United States selectively block a payment source in a way that undermines the fairness of the criminal process?

That distinction is crucial. A Venezuelan lawyer, taxpayer, legislator, or court might frame the issue one way: can public money legally be used to defend a former head of state accused of crimes that, if true, look personal, corrupt, and far outside any legitimate official duty? Things could be different for acts like war crimes or crimes against humanity carried out through the use of state power, such as directing the armed forces. Those types of conduct are often treated as acts performed in an official capacity for purposes of attribution to the State, even though they can also give rise to individual criminal responsibility. Maduro is not currently being prosecuted for those.

A US federal judge, however, may frame the question entirely differently: once the United States has brought this defendant into an American courtroom, can the Executive Branch of the United States selectively block a payment source in a way that undermines the fairness of the criminal process?

Public law systems generally do not treat the treasury as an open-ended insurance policy for any conduct by any officeholder. A serious argument can be made that the state should defend officials for acts tied to the exercise of public office, but not for allegedly private criminal enterprises carried out under cover of office. If the accusation is that an official used the state as a shell for drug trafficking, bribery, or cartel protection, then the argument for mandatory public funding becomes much weaker. That does not make the issue easy. It just means it is not nearly as obvious as Maduro’s motion to dismiss suggests.

There is another layer too. The legitimacy of Maduro’s political authority matters in the background, even if it may not control this problem. The Carter Center said the 2024 Venezuelan presidential election did not meet international standards and could not be verified or corroborated. Reuters reported the same at the time. There are strong public grounds to reject the idea that Maduro’s continued hold on power after the 2024 election reflected a democratic mandate.

But even that does not end the question. US courts often care less about democratic theory than about practical recognition and real-world control. And here the geopolitical situation moved quickly. Washington recognized Delcy Rodríguez’s government in March 2026 and then lifted personal sanctions on her on April 1, 2026. That change is relevant because it undercuts any simplistic claim that all Venezuelan state funds remain equally untouchable in all contexts.

The cleanest way out for the government would be to authorize payment from a clearly identified, untainted funding source subject to tight conditions and reporting. 

That is part of why Judge Alvin Hellerstein pressed the government at the March 26 hearing. Public reports show that he did not dismiss the indictment on the spot. In fact, he signaled the opposite. But he also questioned the coherence of the government’s position and wanted more explanation for why a government now being courted for commercial engagement by the Trump afdministration could not fund a criminal defense. The judge was not ready to throw the case out, but was also not fully satisfied with the prosecution’s answer.

OFAC’s public conduct cuts both ways. Sanctions law often does restrict dealings with blocked governments and blocked persons. However, OFAC publicly issued a series of Venezuela related general licenses in February 2026, including General License 47 on diluents, updated General Licenses 30B, 46A, and 48 on port and airport operations, Venezuelan origin oil, and oil and gas support, and then General Licenses 49 and 50 on contingent investments and certain oil and gas sector operations. Maduro’s lawyers use that sequence to say, in essence: if the Treasury Department can authorize business, investment, and energy transactions involving Venezuela, why can it not authorize payment for criminal defense fees that implicate an express constitutional concern?

The prosecutors, of course, have their own answer. Public reporting says they argued Maduro and Flores could use personal funds, but not Venezuelan state funds, because those public funds are tied to the sanctions framework and, in their view, to illicit proceeds or national security concerns. That position is not irrational. If the government believes the Venezuelan state under Maduro was itself part of the alleged criminal machinery, then letting that same state bankroll the defense may look, from the prosecution’s perspective, like forcing the United States to tolerate the use of tainted sovereign resources to resist prosecution in an American court.

Even so, the government’s position has vulnerabilities. The strongest is not political but doctrinal. The U.S. Supreme Court has treated wrongful denial of counsel of choice as a structural problem, not just an ordinary trial error. And Stein remains a serious Second Circuit precedent where government interference with third party fee payments led to dismissal. Maduro’s legal team is therefore not asking for some exotic new rule. It is trying to fit this unusual case into an existing line of Sixth Amendment and Due Process law.

Maduro’s case involves sanctions, foreign policy, blocked sovereign funds, and a defendant accused of using state power as part of the criminal conduct itself. A judge could reasonably decide that the Stein precedent is relevant but not controlling. A judge could also decide that the proper remedy, if there is a constitutional problem, is not dismissal now but some narrower effort to clarify what funding sources are actually available, whether untainted personal or third-party funds exist, and whether appointed counsel would eliminate any immediate prejudice. That appears to be why Judge Hellerstein has so far resisted the defense’s request for instant dismissal.

This is where the “indigent defendant” point needs to be stated carefully. If Maduro truly had no usable money at all, the court could appoint a public defender under the Criminal Justice Act. That would solve one problem, but not necessarily the one Maduro wants to litigate. His claim is not merely that he wants a lawyer. It is that the government unlawfully blocked the lawyer he picked. Those are related but different ideas. In constitutional terms, appointed counsel is not always a complete answer to an alleged denial of retained counsel of choice.  At the March 26, 2026 hearing, judge Hellerstein offered Maduro’s lawyer an easy off-ramp: should Pollack quit the case, the judge would simply appoint a public defender and carry on with the proceeding.  Pollack, naturally, did not take that off-ramp. And here, again, what Maduro and Delcy are saying is that they (or rather, Venezuelan taxpayers) indeed have the funds, but are being improperly prevented from using such funds.

A process under the American rule of law

So where does that leave matters? In practical terms, somewhere in the middle. Maduro has not shown, at least not yet in public, that dismissal is proper. But the government also has not made the issue disappear by pointing to the possibility of appointed counsel (a public defender). The more OFAC authorizes broad commercial re-engagement with Venezuela while continuing to refuse this narrow defense related authorization, the more uncomfortable the constitutional optics become. I do not believe that Venezuela should pay for Maduro’s legal defense; the problem, however, is that Venezuela wants to pay.

The cleanest way out for the government would be to authorize payment from a clearly identified, untainted funding source subject to tight conditions and reporting. That would preserve the prosecution, avoid turning this pretrial funding dispute into the central drama of the case, and reduce the risk that any eventual conviction is shadowed by a serious Sixth Amendment (Due Process) fight. If the government refuses to do that, it keeps feeding the argument that it wants to control not only the prosecution but also the defense.

The larger irony is hard to miss. Maduro now invokes constitutional protections that his own regime routinely denied to political prisoners, dissidents, and disappeared persons. But American courts are not supposed to ration constitutional rights according to moral sympathy. If the United States has chosen to bring him before a federal court, it must be prepared to give him the process the Constitution requires. The real question is not whether Maduro deserves indulgence.

At least for now, Judge Hellerstein seems unwilling to end the case on that basis alone. But he also seems unwilling to accept a lazy answer. And that may be the most important point of all. This is no longer just a sanctions issue or a Venezuela issue. It is a rule of law issue inside an American courtroom.

A new economic partner?

Libertad Velasco, a Chavista who grew up in the 23 de Enero neighbourhood, was only a teenager when Chavez came to power.

She went on to become one of the founding members of the youth wing of Chavez’s party, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV). Eventually, she became the head of a government agency to expand access to higher education to members of vulnerable communities.

Still, Velasco described the period after Maduro’s abduction as a sort of awakening.

“It’s like we’re looking at ourselves without makeup,” Velasco said. “Now, everything is laid bare, revealed in its purest state, and we are beginning to recognise ourselves again.”

Since the US attack and Maduro’s removal, Velasco has thought deeply about her “red lines”: the ideals she feels should not be violated under the new government.

Standing up against invasive foreign powers remains one of her top priorities.

“I refuse to be colonised,” Velasco said. “For me, we shouldn’t have relations with Israel, and abandoning anti-imperialism is non-negotiable.”

Yet Velasco does not believe that the Venezuelan government has crossed that line yet. Rather, she is open to the prospect of the US as a trading partner to Venezuela, paying for access to its natural resources.

“It is a customer who should pay market price for the product they need. If Venezuela must act as a market player to lift people out of suffering, I can go along with that,” Velasco said.

But it is unclear whether that is happening. Critics point out that the Trump administration has demanded greater control over Venezuela’s natural resources. It has even claimed that Chavez stole Venezuelan oil from US hands.

Already, Venezuela has surrendered nearly 50 million barrels of oil to the US, with the Trump administration splitting the proceeds between the two countries.

Rodriguez, Venezuela’s interim president, has also agreed to submit a monthly budget to the US for approval.

Among Chavistas, there remains debate about whether the relationship with the US is beneficial or exploitative.

But economic recovery is an overwhelming priority for many Venezuelans of all political leanings. Under Maduro, Venezuela entered one of its worst economic crises in history. Inflation is currently at 600 percent, and living standards remain low.

Many Chavista loyalists blame US sanctions for their economic woes. Yet, analysts credit a combination of factors, including declining oil prices, economic mismanagement and pervasive corruption.

Delia Bracho, 68, lives in a district of Caracas called Caricuao, where water is delivered just once a week. Once a committed Chavista, she said her faith in the movement has faded.

Today’s movement, she explained, has been “ruined”, and she no longer wants anything to do with it.

“It’s like when you put on a pair of shoes,” she said. “They break, and you throw them away. Are you going to pick them up again, knowing they are no longer useful?”

Despite her initial fear after the US intervention, Bracho said she now feels cautiously optimistic that Venezuela might change for the better.

“It’s not that everything is fixed, but there is a different atmosphere — one of hope.”

“We are once again the US Embassy in Caracas.”

The US has reopened its embassy in Venezuela, nearly three months after it abducted the former leader Nicolas Maduro and his wife.

Caracas, March 26, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – US Judge Alvin Hellerstein ruled out dismissing the case against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores in a hearing on Thursday in Brooklyn.

The defense team for Maduro and Flores—who face charges including drug trafficking conspiracy and weapons possession—requested that the case be thrown out after the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) denied them authorization to use Venezuelan state funds to pay for legal counsel. OFAC had initially granted the license on February 9 but revoked it three hours later.

New York Southern District Judge Hellerstein declined to throw out the charges due to the blockaded funds, calling it “a serious step based on hypotheticals.” However, he did not formally rule and left the door open to revisit the decision in the future. 

US Justice Department prosecutor Kyle Wirshba argued that allowing access to Venezuelan state funds would undermine existing sanctions policy, adding that if the defendants are unable to hire private attorneys, court-appointed counsel could be assigned. Maduro attorney Barry Pollack countered that such a measure would violate their Sixth Amendment right to choose their own legal representation.

During the hearing, Hellerstein challenged the prosecutors’ arguments, adding that OFAC’s personal sanctions against Maduro and Flores would also block them from using personal funds. The judge likewise disagreed with the prosecution’s claims that the blocking of funding for the defense was a matter of national security, stating that Maduro and Flores “no longer represent a threat.” 

He further remarked that “things have changed” and that the United States is already “doing business” with Venezuela.

According to observers in the courthouse, Maduro and Flores, both in beige prison uniforms and handcuffed, appeared calm throughout the hearing, using headphones for simultaneous translation. Neither spoke. Observers noted that Maduro appeared thinner. Flores’ attorney, Mark Donnelly, made an urgent request for a medical evaluation, specifically an electrocardiogram, citing a pre-existing condition. The judge approved the request.

Hellerstein will set a new court date in the coming days. Maduro and Flores have not requested bail and were returned to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn after the hearing.

Maduro and Flores, who is also a lawmaker, were kidnapped by US special forces during a military attack against Caracas on January 3. They pleaded not guilty at their arraignment two days later. Despite recurring “narcoterrorism” accusations over the years, US officials have not presented evidence tying high-ranking Venezuelan leaders to narcotics activities. Specialized agencies have consistently found Venezuela to play a marginal role in global drug trafficking.

Trump calls for additional ‘charges’

Prior to the hearing, US President Donald Trump argued before reporters that additional charges should be brought against the Venezuelan president. 

“He emptied his prisons into our country, and I expect that at some point he will be charged for that,” he said. Trump has repeatedly raised unfounded claims that the Venezuelan government “emptied” prisons and mental institutions into US territory.

Outside the courthouse, a heavy police presence separated Venezuelan opposition supporters from solidarity activists demanding the release of Maduro and Flores and an end to US attacks against the Caribbean nation.

In Caracas, social movements gathered at Plaza Bolívar to express support for the president and first lady. The demonstration followed another mobilization earlier in the week demanding the lifting of US economic sanctions against Venezuela.

Speaking at the rally, lawmaker Nicolás Maduro Guerra—the president’s son and also facing US Justice Department charges—described his father as “a worker” who identifies “as a son of God above any political office.” Days earlier, in a social media post, Maduro Guerra had said his father would appear “in high spirits” and “in good shape” due to regular exercise.

He was joined by Caracas Mayor Carmen Meléndez, while the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) also called for Maduro’s release in a public statement. 

For her part, Acting President Delcy Rodríguez has yet to comment on Thursday’s hearing. Venezuelan authorities have also not publicly addressed US efforts to block the funding of Maduro and Flores’ legal expenses. 

Since January 3, the Rodríguez administration has led a diplomatic rapprochement with Washington, with several White House officials visiting Venezuela in recent weeks. A Venezuelan government delegation arrived in the US capital on Thursday, led by Vice Minister Oliver Blanco, who reported meetings with State Department officials to boost “mutually beneficial” relations.

Edited by Ricardo Vaz in Caracas.

A United States judge has said that he will not dismiss the drug-trafficking and weapons possession charges brought against former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores.

But in a Thursday court hearing, Judge Alvin Hellerstein questioned whether the US government has the right to bar Venezuela from funding Maduro’s legal expenses.

The hearing was the first for Maduro and his wife since a brief January arraignment, where they pleaded not guilty.

Maduro and Flores have sought to have the charges against them thrown out. Hellerstein declined to do so, but he pressed the prosecution on some of the issues Maduro’s legal team raised in its petition to dismiss the case.

Among them was a decision by the administration of US President Donald Trump to prevent the Venezuelan government from financing Maduro’s defence.

Federal prosecutors argued that national security reasons prevented the US from allowing such payments. They also pointed to ongoing sanctions against the Venezuelan government.

But Hellerstein pushed back against that argument, noting that Trump had eased sanctions against Venezuela since Maduro’s abduction on January 3. He also questioned how Maduro might pose a security threat while imprisoned in New York.

“The defendant is here. Flores is here. They present no further national security threat,” said Hellerstein. “I see no abiding interest of national security on the right to defend themselves.”

Hellerstein emphasised that, in the US, all criminal defendants have the right to a vigorous defence, as part of the Constitution’s Sixth Amendment.

“The right that’s implicated, paramount over other rights, is the right to constitutional counsel,” he said.

Maduro, who led Venezuela from 2013 to 2026, has been charged with four criminal counts, including narco-terrorism conspiracy, conspiracy to import cocaine, the possession of machine guns and the conspiracy to possess machine guns and other destructive devices.

He and his wife were taken into US custody on January 3, after Trump launched an attack on Venezuela.

The Trump administration has framed the military operation as a “law enforcement function”, but experts say it was widely considered illegal under international law, which protects local sovereignty.

Maduro has cited his status as the leader of a foreign country as part of his push to see the case dismissed.

When he last appeared in court, on January 5, he told the judge, “I’m still the president of my country.”

In a February hearing, his defence team sought to dismiss the charges on the basis that preventing Venezuela from paying his legal fees was “interfering with Mr Maduro’s ability to retain counsel and, therefore, his right under the Sixth Amendment to counsel of his choice”.

In an interview with the news agency AFP on Thursday, Maduro’s son, Venezuelan lawmaker Nicolas Maduro Guerra, said that he trusts the US legal system but believes that his father’s trial has been mishandled.

“This trial has vestiges of illegitimacy from the start, because of the capture, the kidnapping, of an elected president in a military operation,” Maduro Guerra said in Caracas.

Protests and counter-protests took place in front of the New York City courthouse on Thursday, with some condemning the US’s actions and others holding signs in support of the trial with slogans like, “Maduro rot in prison.”

Trump himself weighed in on the proceedings during a Thursday cabinet meeting, hinting that further charges could be brought against Maduro.

“He emptied his prisons in Venezuela, emptied his prisons into our country,” Trump said of Maduro, reiterating an unsubstantiated claim.

“And I hope that charge will be brought at some point. Because that was a big charge that hasn’t been brought yet. It should be brought.”

Trump has had an adversarial relationship with Maduro since his first term in office, when he issued a bounty for the Venezuelan leader’s arrest. He has frequently repeated baseless claims that Maduro intentionally sent immigrants and drugs to the US in a bid to destabilise the country.

Those claims have served as a pretext for Trump claiming emergency powers in realms such as immigration and national security. On Thursday, Trump emphasised that, while he expected a “fair trial”, he expected more legal action to be taken against Maduro.

“I would imagine there are other trials coming because they’ve really sued him just at a fraction of the kind of things that he’s done,” Trump said. “Other cases are going to be brought, as you probably know.”

March 26 (UPI) — Former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is scheduled to appear for a court hearing Thursday in New York to argue that the U.S. government is preventing him from paying his lawyer.

The hearing was originally scheduled by Judge Alvin Hellerstein to allow lawyers time to review evidence and possibly set a trial date. But Maduro’s attorney, Barry Pollack, said last month that he will have to withdraw because the U.S. government won’t allow the Venezuelan government to pay his legal fees. Pollack said the Maduros do not have any money.

Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were captured by the American government in early January. They were taken to New York and charged on federal drug trafficking and weapons charges. The U.S. government then installed Delcy Rodriguez as the new president of Venezuela.

Since then, Maduro has been held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn in a unit that gives him “special administrative measures.” The SAMs unit doesn’t allow him access to the outside world and keeps him isolated, CBS News reported. Flores is in a different unit in the same facility.

Pollack said the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control granted then revoked a license that would allow Maduro to pay his legal fees. The Maduros and the Venezuelan government are sanctioned by the United States. That means anyone who wants to receive payment must get a license to do so legally.

Pollack argues that not allowing him to pay his fees is a violation of Maduro’s constitutional right to defend himself. Flores’ lawyer has joined the motion.

Prosecutors have said the initial license was an “administrative error” and the Maduros can still use their personal funds.

“OFAC, however, has denied the defendants’ request for an additional exception: to allow them to pay their legal fees from a slush fund controlled by a sanctioned government. That is because OFAC regulations expressly prohibit using a sanctioned entity’s funds to pay a separate sanctioned person’s attorneys’ fees,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing.

Duncan Levin, a former prosecutor who specializes in sanctions law, told CNN that Maduro would still be entitled to a court-appointed attorney.

“Because he is not recognized as the leader of Venezuela and the whole sanctions regime is meant to cut him off, it’s unlikely that the court is going to feel that he’s entitled to any of the money to help fund his criminal defense,” Levin said.

Pollack has also said he intends to challenge the legality of Maduro’s arrest because he was president at the time of the alleged crimes.

“Under the U.S. Constitution, it’s the president who gets to determine who to recognize as head of state, and I am 100% certain a U.S. court is not going to second guess a U.S. determination that Maduro is no longer head of state,” William Dodge, an international law professor at George Washington University’s law school, told CNN.

“Snatching him was illegal under international law,” he said, but “it’s quite well established in the U.S. the illegality of bringing someone into court doesn’t affect the jurisdiction of the court.”

Dodge added: “Drug trafficking isn’t an official act.”

MIAMI — Secretary of State Marco Rubio testified in court that he had no knowledge that former Florida congressman David Rivera was lobbying on behalf of Venezuela’s government — as prosecutors later alleged — when he met with his longtime friend to discuss U.S. policy toward the South American country several times at the start of the first Trump administration.

“I would’ve been shocked” had I known, Rubio said in almost three hours of testimony Tuesday at Rivera’s federal trial in Miami.

Rivera and an associate were charged in 2022 with money laundering and failing to register as a foreign agent after being awarded a $50-million lobbying contract by Nicolás Maduro’s government.

Prosecutors allege that the goal of the lobbying effort was to persuade the White House to normalize relations with Venezuela, while Rivera’s attorneys argue that the three-month contract, which ended before Rivera met with Rubio, was focused exclusively on luring Exxon Mobil back to Venezuela — commercial work that is generally exempt from the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

As part of his work, Rivera and his co-defendant are accused of trying to arrange meetings for then-Foreign Minister Delcy Rodríguez — now Venezuela’s acting president — in Dallas, New York, Washington and Caracas, Venezuela, with White House officials, members of Congress and the chief executive of Exxon.

Rubio testifies, an unusual move

In sometimes deeply personal testimony Tuesday, Rubio discussed at length friendships that date back to the start of his political career as an aide to Bob Dole’s 1996 presidential campaign and a West Miami council member.

Testifying in a packed courtroom with heightened security, Rubio said he and Rivera became “very close” when they overlapped as members of the Florida Legislature. The two Cuban American Republicans co-owned a house in Tallahassee, celebrated family events together and ardently opposed Venezuela’s socialist government when both went to Washington at the same time — Rubio elected to the Senate, Rivera to the House.

So when Rivera texted Rubio in July 2017 that he needed to see him urgently to discuss Venezuela, they agreed to meet the next day, a Sunday, at a friend’s home in Washington where the then-senator was staying with his family, Rubio said.

At the meeting, Rivera informed Rubio that he was working with Raul Gorrín, a media magnate in Venezuela, on what he described as a plan for Maduro to step aside.

“I was skeptical,” said Rubio, adding that the Maduro government was full of “double dealers” constantly pitching unrealistic plans to unseat Maduro. “But if there was a 1% chance it was real, and I had a role to play alerting the White House, I was open to doing that.”

Rubio said he had no knowledge Rivera was himself working for Maduro, as prosecutors would later allege. Rubio said he doubted Gorrín would betray Maduro even when the former congressman opened his laptop and showed millions of dollars in a Chase bank account that he was told were payments from the businessman to Venezuela’s opposition.

“It was an impressive amount,” Rubio said. “He didn’t tell me whose account it was. He said it was to support the opposition.”

Two days later, borrowing talking points provided by Rivera, Rubio wrote and delivered a speech on the Senate floor signaling the U.S. would not retaliate against Venezuelan insiders who worked to push Maduro from power.

“He provided me with insight into some of the key phrases that regime insiders would’ve wanted to hear to know this was serious,” Rubio testified. “No vengeance, no retribution.”

Rubio also spoke to Trump, alerting the president in his first term that there may be something “brewing” with Venezuela.

‘A total waste of my time’

But the peacemaking effort collapsed almost immediately. At a second meeting at a Washington hotel, Gorrín failed to produce a promised letter from Maduro to Trump that he wanted Rubio to hand-deliver to the president.

“It was a total waste of my time,” Rubio testified.

Shortly afterward, Trump imposed heavy sanctions on Maduro and members of his inner circle for their decision to go forward with what Rubio called a “fake election” to empower a constituent assembly that undercut the opposition-controlled legislature.

By that time, the senator hewed closely to the Trump administration’s hard line. He taped a rare 10-minute address to the Venezuelan people in July 2017, a day after the divisive election, that was broadcast exclusively on Gorrín’s Globovision network.

“For Nicolás Maduro, who I am sure is watching, the current path you are on will not end well for you,” Rubio said in the televised address.

On the stand, Rubio said that had he known Rivera was working with Gorrín on behalf of Maduro, he never would have agreed to deliver the address on the network.

But Rivera said Rubio’s testimony backed his defense that as a lifelong opponent of communism he never worked to strengthen Maduro’s grip on power.

“Marco Rubio made it abundantly clear today that everything we worked on together in 2017 was meant to remove Maduro from power in Venezuela,” he said in a statement.

Throughout his testimony Rubio, a lawyer, spoke calmly and in command of granular details of U.S. policy toward Venezuela over the past decade, even as he struggled to recall the specifics of his text exchanges with Rivera on Venezuela matters.

His testimony was highly unusual. Not since Labor Secretary Raymond Donovan testified at a Mafia trial in 1983 has a sitting member of the president’s Cabinet taken the stand in a criminal trial.

As if to underscore the uniqueness of his appearance in federal court, Rivera’s attorney, Ed Shohat, asked Rubio to sign a copy of his 2012 autobiography, “An American Son,” at the conclusion of his testimony.

Rivera and his co-defendant, political consultant Esther Nuhfer, are among a small number of friends and family Rubio thanks in the acknowledgment section of his memoir.

Goodman writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — U.S. companies will be allowed to do business with Venezuela’s state-owned oil and gas company after the Treasury Department eased sanctions, with some limitations, on Wednesday as the Trump administration looks for ways to boost world oil supplies during the Iran war.

The Treasury issued a broad authorization allowing Petróleos de Venezuela S.A, or PDVSA, to directly sell Venezuelan oil to U.S. companies and on global markets, a massive shift after Washington for years had largely blocked dealings with Venezuela’s government and its oil sector.

Separately, the White House said President Trump would waive, for 60 days, Jones Act requirements for goods shipped between U.S. ports to be moved on U.S.-flagged vessels. The 1920s law, designed to protect the American shipbuilding sector, is often blamed for making gas more expensive.

The moves highlight the increased pressure that the Republican administration is under to ease soaring oil prices as the United States, along with Israel, wages a war with Iran without a foreseeable end date. Global oil prices have since spiked as Iran halted traffic through the narrow Strait of Hormuz, where one-fifth of the world’s oil typically passes through from the Persian Gulf to customers worldwide.

The Treasury’s license is designed to incentivize new investment in Venezuela’s energy sector and is intended to benefit both the U.S and Venezuela, while increasing the global oil supply, a Treasury official told the Associated Press. The official was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Since the ouster and arrest of Nicolás Maduro as Venezuela’s president during a U.S. military operation in January, Trump has said the U.S. would effectively “run” Venezuela and sell its oil.

The U.S. license provides targeted relief from sanctions, but does not lift the penalties altogether. The license allows companies that existed before Jan. 29, 2025, to buy Venezuelan oil and engage in transactions that would normally be banned under American sanctions, reopening trade for a major oil producer to global markets.

There are some limits.

Payments cannot go directly to sanctioned Venezuelan entities such as PDVSA, but must be sent instead to a special U.S.-controlled account. In other words, the U.S. will allow the oil trade but will control the cash flow.

Additionally, deals involving Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba and some Chinese entities will not be allowed. Transactions involving Venezuelan debt or bonds will not be allowed.

The license is expected to give a massive boost to Venezuela’s oil-dependent economy and help encourage companies that have been apprehensive to invest. The decision is part of the Trump administration’s phased-in plan to turn around Venezuela. But critics of the acting Venezuelan government argue that the move rewards Venezuela’s leadership — all loyal to Maduro and the ruling party — while repression, corruption and human rights abuses continue.

Many public sector workers survive on roughly $160 per month, while the average private sector employee earned about $237 last year, when the annual inflation rate soared to 475%, according to Venezuela’s central bank, and sent the cost of food beyond what many can afford.

Venezuela sits atop the world’s largest oil reserves and used them to power what was once Latin America’s strongest economy. But corruption, mismanagement and U.S. economic sanctions saw production steadily decline from the 3.5 million barrels per day pumped in 1999, when Maduro’s mentor, Hugo Chávez, took power, to less than 400,000 barrels per day in 2020.

A year earlier, the Treasury Department under the first Trump administration locked Venezuela out of world oil markets when it sanctioned PDVSA as part of a policy punishing Maduro’s government for corrupt, anti-democratic and criminal activities. That forced the government to sell its remaining oil output at a discount — about 40% below market prices — to buyers such as China and in other Asian markets. Venezuela even started accepting payments in Russian rubles, bartered goods or cryptocurrency.

The new license does not allow payments in gold or cryptocurrency, including the petro, which was a crypto token issued by the Venezuelan government in 2018.

Meantime, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the Jones Act waiver would help “mitigate the short-term disruptions to the oil market” during the Iran war and would “allow vital resources like oil, natural gas, fertilizer, and coal to flow freely to U.S. ports.”

Hussein and Cano write for the Associated Press. Cano reported from Caracas, Venezuela. AP writer Seung Min Kim contributed to this report.

Caracas, March 17, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – The Trump administration has opposed a motion from Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores for the dismissal of US criminal charges on the grounds of the US Treasury blocking their legal defense funds.

In a court filing, US Justice Department prosecutors argued that “the defendants and their former regime” have been sanctioned by the US government for several years and that regulations from the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) “expressly prohibit” that funds from a “sanctioned entity” be used to pay a “sanctioned person’s” legal expenses.

“OFAC’s denial of that request does not mean the [US] government violated the defendants’ due process rights. The motions to dismiss should be denied,” the statement read.

Last month, Maduro and Flores’ legal teams urged Judge Alvin Hellerstein to throw out the cases over the US government’s interference with their “ability to retain counsel.” Defense attorney for the Venezuelan president, Barry Pollack, argued that Washington’s actions violated Maduro’s Sixth Amendment rights.

In a sworn statement handed to the court, Maduro declared that under Venezuelan law he is “entitled” to have his legal expenses covered by Caracas and confirmed that Pollack is his “counsel of choice.”

Pollack further added that, on January 9, OFAC issued permission for the Venezuelan government to cover Maduro and Flores’ legal fees, only to withdraw it hours later. The high-profile attorney has announced plans to invoke Maduro’s immunity as a sitting president as part of his legal strategy.

US prosecutors have claimed that the defendants are allowed to use “personal funds” to pay their attorneys’ fees. However, both Maduro and Flores, as well as multiple immediate relatives, are under OFAC sanctions, making it illegal for US persons and entities to engage in financial transactions with them.

The Venezuelan Communications Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Venezuelan officials, including Acting President Delcy Rodríguez, have yet to weigh in on the Trump administration’s efforts to hamper Maduro and Flores’ defense efforts.

President Maduro and his wife, who is also a National Assembly deputy, were kidnapped by US Special forces on January 3 amid a bombing campaign against Caracas and nearby areas. Rodríguez, as sitting vice president, assumed the presidency on an acting basis after the Venezuelan Supreme Court decreed that Maduro’s abduction constituted a “temporary absence.”

Maduro was indicted on charges of “narcoterrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machineguns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machineguns and destructive devices against the United States.” Flores faces the latter three counts. Both pleaded not guilty in their arraignment hearing on January 5. The next hearing is scheduled for March 26.

Despite reiterated “narcoterrorism” accusations, US officials have not presented evidence tying Maduro and other high-ranking officials to narcotics activities. Specialized reports have likewise found Venezuela to play a marginal role in global drug trafficking.

Following the January 3 attacks and presidential kidnapping, Rodríguez has fast-tracked a diplomatic rapprochement with the Trump administration. The acting president has hosted several US officials in Caracas while promoting a pro-business overhaul of the country’s oil and mining laws aimed at courting  Western corporations.

Caracas and Washington reestablished diplomatic ties on March 5 following a seven-year hiatus, with the White House formally recognizing Rodríguez as Venezuela’s “sole leader” last week. 

Since January 3, Venezuelan government supporters have staged multiple demonstrations to condemn the US attacks and demand the immediate release of the Venezuelan president and first lady. 

US-based solidarity movements have also organized rallies in support of Maduro and Flores, including outside the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn where they are detained.

Edited by Lucas Koerner in Fusagasugá, Colombia.

Caracas, March 13, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – Venezuelan Acting President Delcy Rodríguez welcomed on Wednesday the formal recognition granted by the United States government to her administration as the South American country’s “sole” and legitimate authority.

Rodríguez argued that Washington’s decision goes beyond any individual figure or government. 

“It is not recognition of a person or a government; it is recognition of a country so that it is able to recover its life,” she said during a televised broadcast, referring to the impact of wide-reaching US unilateral coercive measures imposed since 2015.

The Venezuelan leader affirmed that the diplomatic move could help advance “national unity” and contribute to the “normalization” of the country’s political, economic, and social life. “What matters to me is that this can bring a process of reordering and normalization,” she added.

The recognition was communicated by Manhattan US Attorney Jay Clayton in a “statement of interest” addressed to federal Judge Sarah Netburn. Clayton is likewise heading the prosecution in the US Justice Department’s case against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

Maduro was kidnapped by US special forces alongside First Lady Cilia Flores on January 3 during a military operation. The pair has pleaded not guilty to charges including drug trafficking conspiracy and will face a hearing on March 26. US officials have not provided evidence tying Venezuelan high-ranking officials to narcotics activities, while specialized reports have consistently found Venezuela to play a marginal role in global drug trafficking.

Clayton’s missive referenced a letter from State Department official Michael Kozak which identified Rodríguez as Venezuela’s “sole Head of State.” Kozak’s letter expressed the Trump administration’s argument that the recognition will help advance US interests in the Caribbean nation.

Trump publicly acknowledged Washington’s recognition of the Venezuelan government for the first time during the Shield of the Americas Summit on March 7. The White House argued that its stance would contribute to Venezuelan stability and economic recovery, as well as create the conditions for “a peaceful transition toward a democratically elected government.”

Caracas and Washington reestablished diplomatic ties on March 5 and have taken steps to reopen their respective embassies and consulates. The Maduro government severed ties with the first Trump administration in 2019 when the latter recognized then–National Assembly president Juan Guaidó as Venezuela’s “interim president.”

Kozak reiterated in his letter that since January 23, 2019, the US has not recognized Maduro as Venezuela’s head of state and that this position had not changed. 

“Maduro is an accused narco-terrorist awaiting trial in a US federal court for his crimes,” the document read. The Venezuelan president’s defense team is expected to argue that Maduro should be entitled to immunity from prosecution as a sitting head of state.

Washington’s formal recognition of the acting government in Caracas could also have implications for Venezuelan assets abroad. Since 2019, several bank accounts and US-based Venezuelan refiner CITGO have been frozen or under the control of the US-backed opposition.

The White House’s move will also pave the way for renegotiations surrounding Venezuela’s sizable sovereign debt, with creditors eager for a potential windfall after buying defaulted bonds at very depressed prices.

While Clayton’s address identified Rodríguez as the only person “able to take action on behalf of Venezuela,” US authorities have not clarified whether the Venezuelan government will retake control of its US-based assets.

In addition, the Justice Department attorney declined to take a position regarding “which counsel is authorized to represent certain Venezuelan state-owned entities.” On Thursday, Judge Netburn requested further clarification from the administration regarding the representation of Venezuelan interests before US courts before March 26.

In her Wednesday address, Rodríguez went on to acknowledge “daily exchanges” with US counterparts and expressed “gratefulness” for the reestablishment of trade relations. The acting president stated that Venezuela has imported medical equipment and medicines from US companies in recent weeks.

Since early 2026, the Trump administration taken direct control of revenues generated by Venezuelan oil exports, depositing funds into accounts held by the US Treasury. Around a quarter of an initial US $2 billion crude sale agreement has reportedly been returned to Caracas.

Recently issued US licenses allowing transactions in the Venezuelan oil and mining sectors likewise mandate that proceeds be deposited in Treasury-run accounts.

US officials have claimed that Venezuelan authorities need to submit a “budget request” to access the country’s funds and will only be allowed to import goods and services from US manufacturers.

Edited and with additional reporting by Ricardo Vaz in Caracas.

March 12 (UPI) — The International Criminal Court Office of the Prosecutor announced Thursday that the United States did not commit crimes against humanity with its sanctions against Venezuela.

The investigation, called Venezuela II by the court, was referred to the court by Venezuela’s government in 2020, alleging that sanctions against the country had caused suffering and hardship.

The referral from now-deposed President Nicolas Maduro alleges the suffering of Venezuelans from “the application of unlawful coercive measures adopted unilaterally by the government of the United States of America against Venezuela, at least since the year 2014.”

Venezuela alleged that “murder, extermination, deportation, persecution and other inhumane acts constituting crimes against humanity” were committed, the OTP said.

The ICC prosecutor determined that the “evidential requirements of causation and intent are not met.”

The evidence “must provide a reasonable basis to believe that sanctions by the United States of America led to murder, displacement or other alleged crimes,” the OTP said.

The decision is unrelated to the January 2026 events in Venezuela, the prosecutor noted.

In January, the United States invaded Venezuela, arrested Maduro and his wife and took them to Manhattan, where they await trial on drug trafficking charges.

The ICC prosecutor said it is still investigating “Venezuela I,” a case that doesn’t involve the United States.

On our recent delegation to Venezuela, one quote echoed again and again — a warning written nearly two centuries ago by Simón Bolívar in 1829:

“The United States appears destined by Providence to plague America with misery in the name of liberty.”

For many Venezuelans, that line no longer feels like history. It feels like the present.

The January 3 U.S. military operation that seized President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores marked a dramatic escalation in a conflict that Venezuelans describe not as sudden but as cumulative — the culmination of decades of pressure, sanctions, and attempts at isolation. “We still haven’t totally processed what happened on January 3,” sanctions expert William Castillo told us. “But it was the culmination of over 25 years of aggression and 11 years of resisting devastating sanctions. A 20-year-old today has lived half his life in a blockaded country.”

Carlos Ron, former deputy foreign minister and now with the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research, described the buildup to the invasion as the result of a carefully constructed narrative. “First there was the dangerous rhetoric describing Venezuelans in the United States as criminals,” he said. “Then endless references to the Tren de Aragua gang. Then the boat strikes blowing up alleged smugglers. Then the oil tanker seizures and naval blockade. The pressure wasn’t working, so they escalated to the January 3 invasion and kidnapping of President Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, and the deaths of over 100 people.”

While in the United States the events of January 3 have largely been forgotten, replaced by a devastating war with Iran, in Venezuela the reminders are everywhere. Huge banners draped from apartment buildings demand: “Bring them home.” Weekly protests call for their release.

In the Tiuna neighborhood of Caracas, we met Mileidy Chirinos, who lives in an apartment complex overlooking the site where Maduro was captured. From her rooftop, she told us about that dreadful night, when the sky lit up with explosions so loud her building shook and everyone ran outside screaming.

“Have your children ever woken up terrified to the sound of bombs?” she asked.

We shook our heads.

“Ours have,” she said. “And they are U.S. bombs. Now we understand what Palestinians in Gaza feel every day.”

She told us psychologists now visit weekly to help residents cope with the trauma.

Within days of the U.S. invasion, the National Assembly swore in Vice President Delcy Rodríguez as acting president. President Trump publicly praised Rodríguez for “doing a good job,” emphasizing his strong relationship with her. But from the beginning, she has been negotiating with the United States with a gun to her head. She was told that any refusal to compromise would result not in the kidnapping of her and her team, but death and the continued bombing of Venezuela.

The presence of U.S. power looms large. Nuclear submarines still patrol offshore. Thousands of troops remain positioned nearby. Every statement and decision made by the government is scrutinized. And on February 2, despite Trump’s praise for Delcy Rodríguez, he renewed the 2015 executive order declaring Venezuela an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to U.S. national security.

The visits from the heads of the CIA and Southern Command have undoubtedly been difficult for the government to swallow. Delcy’s revolutionary father was tortured to death in 1976 by a Venezuelan government that worked closely with the CIA. The U.S. Southern Command coordinated the January 3 attack.

But the government is not without leverage.

“The United States thought the state was weak, that it didn’t have popular support, that the military was divided,” said Tania Díaz of the ruling PSUV party. “January 3rd could have triggered looting, military defections, or widespread destabilization. None of that happened.”

The United States has overwhelming military dominance, but it was also aware that millions of Venezuelans signed up to be part of the people’s militia. This militia, along with the army that remained loyal to the government, gave Washington pause about launching a prolonged war and attempting to replace Delcy Rodríguez with opposition leader María Corina Machado. 

While Machado enjoys enthusiastic support among Venezuelan exiles in Miami and the Trump administration recognized her movement as the winner of the 2024 election, the picture inside Venezuela is very different.  The opposition remains deeply divided and Trump realized there was no viable faction ready to assume power.

Besides, as William Castillo put it bluntly: “Trump does not care about elections or human rights or political prisoners. He cares about three other things: oil, oil, and oil.” To that, we can add gold, where the U.S. just pushed Venezuela to provide direct access to gold exports and investment opportunities in the country’s gold and mineral sector, 

Certainly, under the circumstances, the Venezuelan leadership has had little choice but to grant the United States significant influence over its oil exports. But while Trump boasts that this is the fruit of his “spectacular assault,” Maduro had long been open to cooperation with U.S. oil companies.

“Maduro was well aware that Venezuela needed investment in its oil facilities,” Castillo told us, “but the lack of investment is because of U.S. sanctions, not because of Maduro. Venezuela never stopped selling to the U.S.; it is the U.S. that stopped buying. And it also stopped selling spare parts needed to repair the infrastructure. So the U.S. started the fire that decimated our oil industry and now acts as if it’s the firefighter coming to the rescue.”

In any case, the easing of oil sanctions — the only sanctions that have been partially lifted — is already bringing an infusion of much-needed dollars, and the government has been able to use these funds to support social programs.

But in Venezuela the conflict is not seen as simply about oil. Blanca Eekhout, head of the Simon Bolivar Institute, says U.S. actions represent a brazen return to the 1823 Monroe Doctrine. The doctrine originally warned European powers not to interfere in the Western Hemisphere, but over time it became a justification for repeated U.S. interventions across the region. 

“We have gone back 200 years,” she said. “All rules of sovereignty have been violated. But while the Trump administration thinks it can control the hemisphere by force, it can’t.”

The historical contradiction is stark. In 1823, the young United States declared Latin America its sphere of influence. A year earlier, Bolívar envisioned a powerful, sovereign Latin America capable of charting its own destiny. That tension still echoes through the present.

Bolívar’s dream is also being battered by the resurgence of the right across the region. The left in Latin America is far weaker than during the days of Hugo Chávez. Bolivia’s Evo Morales and Ecuador’s Rafael Correa have been replaced by conservative leaders. Cuba remains under a suffocating U.S. siege. Progressive regional institutions like CELAC and ALBA have faded, and the vision of Latin American unity that once seemed within reach now feels far more fragile.

In Caracas, the situation is tangled, contradictory, and volatile. But amid the uncertainty, one thing felt clear: the Venezuelan left is not collapsing. It is recalibrating.

As Blanca told us before we left:

“They thought we would fall apart. But we are still here.”

And in the background, Bolívar’s warning continues to drift through the air — like a storm that never quite passes.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Venezuelanalysis editorial staff.

Medea Benjamin is the cofounder of CODEPINK for Peace, and the author of several books, including Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran. 

Source: Code Pink