By Jack Phillips
Contributing Writer
Former Attorney General William Barr said he believes deposed Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro will be convicted and will receive a sentence comparable to the one handed down to former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega.
Barr was an assistant attorney general when the U.S. military invaded Panama and captured Noriega, and was involved in the case against him when he was attorney general under the first Bush administration.
When he was attorney general during the first Trump administration, Barr also oversaw Maduro’s indictment in 2020 and at the time accused the Venezuelan leader of conspiring with Marxist Colombian terrorist groups to traffic drugs.
Barr told “Fox News Sunday” in an interview that he has “a high degree of confidence” that Maduro will “ultimately be convicted,” noting that the legal arguments that have been raised were also brought up during the prosecution of Noriega decades earlier.
Noriega faced U.S. federal charges for drug trafficking, money laundering and racketeering, which led to his capture by U.S. forces in January 1990. He was later convicted and sentenced to 40 years in prison, of which he served 17 years. After a legal battle in France in which he was ultimately sent back to Panama, Noriega died of a brain tumor in 2017.
Barr told Fox News that “when a group of foreigners are engaged in an activity that’s directed against the United States, that can both be” an issue that subjects them to the jurisdiction of U.S. courts and “a national security threat.”
He added that the point of the operation was to arrest not only Maduro but also a number of his top officials, which would require the U.S. government “to play a role” in the future of the country.
“Throughout our history, it’s become necessary sometimes in carrying out law enforcement or suppressing banditry … to change a regime,” Barr said, mentioning U.S. operations against pirates during the Barbary Wars in the early 19th century.
Federal prosecutors charged Maduro, who was captured by U.S. forces in a weekend operation in Caracas, with federal drug trafficking and other counts. He pleaded not guilty in a New York City courthouse on Monday during his first court appearance.
“I was captured,” Maduro said in Spanish, as translated by a courtroom interpreter, before being cut off by the judge. When asked later for his plea to the charges, he stated: “I am innocent. I am not guilty. I am a decent man, the constitutional president of my country.”
Maduro is accused by federal officials of overseeing a cocaine-trafficking network with international drug cartels and faces four criminal counts: narco-terrorism, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess those items.
The Venezuelan leader has long denied the allegations, saying they were a mask to capture Venezuela’s rich oil reserves.
After the operation, the country’s vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, was sworn in as Venezuela’s interim president with words of support for Maduro but no indication she would fight the U.S. move. She released a statement on Monday suggesting her government wants to cooperate with the Trump administration.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
