President Trump held a press availability on route to Washington, DC. Obviously, the primary topic is the current status of Venezuela and the administration plans for stability following the successful capture of Nicolas Maduro.
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Secretary of State, National Security Advisor, National Archivist and now interim El Jefe President (Pro Tempore) of Venezuela, Marco Rubio, appears on NBC to outline the U.S. goals and objectives for a stable Venezuela.
The insufferable Kirsten Welker, totally unprepared for the interview, seems to struggle with common sense and listening to answers. Seriously, the questions are plain goofy. However, that said, Secretary Rubio patiently tries to crack through the membrane of cognitive dissonance and explain exactly what the current status is along with the objective. WATCH:
Working on the transcript. In the interim….
From the Twit: Delcy Rodríguez and the core of the regime’s leadership are negotiating with the United States as we speak. This is not a sudden pivot. It is the result of a conclusion reached in Washington over months: the U.S. does not believe that María Corina Machado and the opposition have the operational capacity to seize power in Venezuela because they do not control, or meaningfully fracture, the military. If they did, power would have shifted immediately after the 2024 presidential election. It did not.
This is very interesting timing considering the recent denial by Zelenskyy that Ukraine had anything to do with the attack on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s residence.
According to Politico, Zelenskyy is removing Vasyl Malyuk as head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), the state’s top counterintelligence agency. Malyuk previously worked with British intelligence on operation “Spiderweb” where Ukrainian drones hit Russia’s strategic bombers on several protected airfields (USA not informed).
Vasyl Malyuk (pictured above right) was reportedly also behind the St Petersburg terrorist attack that killed Russian blogger Maksim Fomin, 40, who was more popularly known by his pen name, Vladlen Tatarsky. The important element of this shift is the intelligence nature of Malyuk and his covert operations, which arguably did not always flow through information channels.
VIA POLITICO – Vasyl Malyuk as head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), the state’s top counterintelligence agency, as part of an ongoing government reshuffle.
The reshuffle has already seen two other top spies — Kyrylo Budanov and Oleh Ivashchenko — shifted to other responsibilities. Budanov has agreed to head the president’s office, while Ivashchenko will be chief of the HUR military intelligence service. Malyuk is said to be fighting to retain his post.
Many on the political left, and even a few on the political right, are having fits about President Trump authorizing the operation to capture Venezuela president and narcotrafficker Nicolas Maduro without any congressional notification.
Several House members attempted to frame the issue as Trump acting as a dictator. A few called attention to the lack of the Gang of Eight being notified, and even some Republican senators on the Senate Armed Services Committee were concerned with the military deployment without advance notice.
If a covert intelligence operation was deployed, the President would sign a “finding memo” generally notifying the Gang of Eight, but that doesn’t apply in this instance.
President Trump remarked a concern with leaks was an element, saying that Congress has “a tendency to leak,” which he said could have produced “a very different result.” However, Secretary Marco Rubio was purposefully clear in his statement about the operation.
“This is not the kind of mission that you can do congressional notification on. It was a trigger-based mission in which conditions had to be met night after night,” Rubio said later at a Mar-a-Lago news conference. “Remember, at the end of day, at its core, this was an arrest of two indicted fugitives of American justice, and the Department of War supported the Department of Justice in that job. Now there are broader policy implications here, but it’s just not the kind of mission that you can pre-notify because it endangers the mission,” he said.
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton affirmed after discussion with Rubio, “Congress doesn’t need to be notified ever time the executive branch is making an arrest. And that’s exactly what happened this morning in Venezuela, and now Maduro is going to come to the United States, and he’s going to face justice.”
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Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come. THY WILL BE DONE, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but DELIVER US FROM EVIL.
For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen †
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Captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his arrested wife, Cilia Flores, landed at Stewart Air Force Base in Newburgh, New York late Saturday afternoon.
The couple have been charged with narcoterrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, and weapons offenses. [INDICTMENT HERE] Maduro and Flores are likely to be held at the Metropolitan Detention Center, a federal facility in Brooklyn, to be housed after being processed by the DEA.
DEA officers escorted Maduro for his customary perp walk through the airport as video and photographs were taken.
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(VIA AP) – […] The middle-of-the-night seizure of Maduro and his wife, who were transported on a U.S. warship and arrived in New York on Saturday evening to face narcoterrorism conspiracy charges, is beyond even the most high-profile historical examples of aggressive American actions toward autocratic governments in Panama, Iraq, and beyond, legal experts said. It came after a surprise U.S. incursion into the Venezuelan capital, rocked with overnight explosions.
Today at 11:00am ET President Donald Trump will deliver remarks and hold a press conference addressing the capture of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro.
President Trump is expected to discuss the operation, its international implications, and next steps as details continue to emerge. Livestream Links Below:
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The indictment against Maduro has been unsealed and released – SEE HERE
Speaking to Fox News this morning, President Trump answers questions about the Delta Force operation that captured Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro.
Maduro is currently aboard the USS Iwo Jima. WATCH:
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As video of U.S. military operations inside Venezuela began to surface on social media, President Donald Trump has announced that overnight the U.S. military carried out a “large scale strike” against Venezuela and captured President Nicolas Maduro.
