Maduro’s ouster on drug charges comes as Trump lets others free : NPR

President Donald Trump, alongside (from left) Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, speaks to the media following U.S. military actions in Venezuela, at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida, January 3.

JIM WATSON/AFP

hide caption

toggle caption

JIM WATSON/AFP

President Trump dramatically escalated the U.S. war on drugs Saturday morning, ordering the invasion of Venezuela and impeaching that country’s president, Nicolás Maduro, and his wife, Cilia Flores, who were quickly indicted on drug trafficking charges by the U.S. Department of Justice.

But the stunning military action comes at a time when Trump has also released or pardoned other convicted drug traffickers and people accused of ties to gangs and drug cartels – including the former president of Honduras.

Targeting a “deadly narcoterrorism campaign”

Maduro and Flores of Venezuela face charges of “drug trafficking and narcoterrorist conspiracy,” according to an indictment released by U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi. “They will soon face the full wrath of American justice on American soil, in American courts,” Bondi said in a message posted on social media.

The Justice Department indicted Maduro in March 2020, during the first Trump administration, on allegations of narcoterrorism and drug trafficking into the United States.

That indictment claimed that Maduro was the leader of the Cartel de los Soles and that he and other defendants participated in a narcoterrorism plot with the Colombian guerrilla group known as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

At a news conference Saturday, Trump acknowledged other motivations that led him to order the attack, including his desire to take control of Venezuela’s oil fields. But he highlighted drug trafficking as a key factor, accusing Maduro of a “deadly narcoterrorism campaign against the United States and its citizens.”

Since taking office, Trump has rapidly evolved the fight against drug overdose deaths in the United States from a public health response to aggressive interdiction efforts led in unprecedented ways by the U.S. military.

Trump has designated a growing number of drug cartels as terrorist organizations, ordered the U.S. Navy to target suspected drug boats in a series of deadly strikes and designated fentanyl, a street opioid, as a weapon of mass destruction.

The change, along with Saturday’s military action, drew praise from conservative supporters.

“[Maduro’s capture]“This is a huge improvement over what we experienced, which was a narcodictatorship, which used drugs and mass migration against the United States,” Andrés Martínez-Fernández, a Latin America expert at the Heritage Foundation, said in a statement posted on social media.

But despite Trump’s tough rhetoric and actions, he has also sparked controversy with some of his recent pardons.

“Using the War on Drugs as an Excuse”

Last month, Trump released former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who was convicted in the United States of helping to smuggle more than 400 tons of cocaine into the United States.

Jeffrey Singer, a drug policy analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute, said that given Trump’s leniency toward some suspected drug criminals, he is skeptical that narcotics interdiction is a serious goal of Saturday’s operation in Venezuela.

“If that’s what motivates [Trump]if it’s about stopping drug trafficking, why is he pardoning the Honduran president who was convicted of cocaine trafficking? It was never about that,” he said.

According to Singer, it is dangerous for the U.S. government to use drug-related criminal charges to justify the military invasion of another country and arrest of a foreign leader, without first obtaining authorization from Congress. “They’re basically using the war on drugs as an excuse,” he added.

During his press conference Saturday, Trump said his decision to pardon the former president of Honduras reflected his belief that Hernandez had been unfairly prosecuted by the Biden administration.

“This is a man who was persecuted in a very unjust way,” he said, without providing proof. “This man was treated very badly and unfairly, which is why I granted him my pardon.”

Harsh words, but some drug traffickers are released

But Hernandez is not an isolated case. During his second term, Trump pardoned and released a significant number of other figures involved in drug trafficking, including Ross Ulbricht, who was serving a life sentence for creating a “dark web” site known as Silk Road that was used by drug traffickers.

“Ulbricht deliberately operated Silk Road as an online criminal marketplace intended to enable its users to buy and sell drugs and other illegal goods,” the DOJ said in a 2015 statement.

Trump also pardoned Larry Hoover, 74, who was serving multiple life sentences in federal prison for crimes, including drug trafficking, related to his role as leader of the Chicago-based Gangster Disciples.

In August, Democratic Rep. Robert Garcia expressed “serious concerns” after the Trump administration released and deported to El Salvador a man named Cesar Humberto Lopez-Lario, accused by the DOJ of being “a high-ranking leader” of the MS-13 drug gang. “Such a decision not only undermines ongoing federal investigations, but also threatens the national security of the United States,” Garcia wrote.

Previously, during his first term in the White House, the Trump administration also released General Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda, former Secretary of National Defense of Mexico in 2020. Cienfuegos was accused in the United States of closely collaborating with drug cartels that transported large quantities of drugs to the United States.

“There are a lot of mixed messages and signals [from the White House] which creates a kind of chaos and uncertainty,” Singer of the Cato Institute said in a May interview with NPR. “On the one hand, you’re threatening even harsher penalties against people who sell drugs, while on the other hand, you’re releasing drug dealers from prisons.”

–Portions of this developing story were published in a previous NPR report on May 31, 2025.