The Department of Justice has significantly revisited its indictment against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Maduro was kidnapped by US forces in Venezuela on Saturday, and pleaded not guilty to charges in a New York court on Monday.
The New York Times’ Charlie Savage reported that the Department of Justice had removed nearly all mentions of “Cartel de los Soles” from the indictment against Maduro. The White House previously designated Cartel de los Soles as a foreign terrorist organization and claimed Maduro was the leader.
However, experts have disputed the Trump administration’s assertions, arguing that Cartel de los Soles is not an actual group and that Maduro is not the leader of a cartel. The new indictment appears to be more in line with the expert assessment of Cartel de los Solis and Maduro.
Maduro appeared in court along with his wife earlier this week, and the couple pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Savage reports that the new indictment mentions Cartel de los Soles only twice, compared with 32 times in the initial charging document. Additionally, it no longer describes Maduro as its leader.
President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have claimed that Maduro was responsible for smuggling narcotics into the US that were killing hundreds of thousands of Americans. But Venezuela is not a source of drug production, and only a small percentage of the cocaine that enters the US transits the South American nation.
Savage has a checkered history of reporting key national security issues. In 2020, Savage wrote that Russia was paying the Taliban to kill American soldiers in Afghanistan. While the claim was later debunked, it was used to attempt to prevent Trump from ending the pullout of US troops from Afghanistan.
