House lawmakers debate legality of Maduro seize, assaults on alleged drug boats

The Venezuelan government deliberately used drugs as a weapon of mass destruction against the U.S., Venezuelan-American political commentator Franklin Camargo told a panel of House lawmakers Wednesday.

“The ultimate goal was to destabilize these United States of America. That is reason enough to indict [Venezuelan President] Nicolas Maduro to capture him and to bring him to justice,” he said, adding that capturing Mr. Maduro was not only justified but necessary for the security of Americans.

The House Judiciary subcommittee on Oversight examined the legal basis for the Trump administration’s operation to arrest Mr. Maduro and U.S. airstrikes on alleged drug-smuggling vessels.

“Ultimately, the operations in and around Venezuela sent a very, very clear message: Those who traffic drugs enable terrorism and undermine democracy, and they cannot hide behind corrupt regimes forever,” said subcommittee Chair Rep. Jefferson Van Drew, New Jersey Republican.

The U.S. military successfully managed a covert operation to capture Mr. Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, on Jan. 3. Mr. Maduro has been charged with narco-terrorism, drug trafficking conspiracy and weapons offenses.

The capture of Mr. Maduro was not an act of war or regime change but a targeted law enforcement operation that used a whole-of-government approach to execute a federal arrest warrant, said Gina D’Andrea, general counsel for litigation at America First Policy Institute, a conservative think tank.

The Constitution balances the executive branch’s accountability through Congress, she said, and this operation honors that design.

The U.S. is bound to the United Nations Charter, ratified by Congress in 1945, which prohibits the “use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.”

“The executive branch has long contended that a treaty unto itself cannot violate the president’s inherent constitutional powers,” said Josh Blackman, professor at the South Texas College of Law Houston.

Republicans celebrated capturing Mr. Maduro. Democrats agreed that the Venezuelan president needed to go but say the operation was unlawful.

“I remember as a little girl being told things like two wrongs don’t make a right. It is very clear that Maduro is a wrong guy. And he may have even been illegally in power. But the idea that you would meet illegality with further illegality does not necessarily make it a right,” said Rep. Jasmine Crockett, Texas Democrat.

Since September, the U.S. military has also carried out a series of strikes in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific ⁠against alleged drug boats, ushering in concerns that the operations amount to “extrajudicial executions.”

So far, 157 people allegedly affiliated with drug organizations have been killed in 45 strikes against suspected drug trafficking vessels in the Western Hemisphere.

“In America, we arrest and we prosecute people who commit crimes. We don’t blow them out of the water with a Hellfire missile,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin, Maryland Democrat.

Sinking suspected drug smuggling boats and sending the evidence to the bottom of the sea is not an effective attack on drug cartels, said Thomas Padden, former acting director of the Justice Department’s Organized Crime Drug Enforcement.

“Interdictions that seize physical evidence and arrest mariners allow law enforcement to expand their investigations and identify additional co-conspirators,” he said.