Adam Smith downplays Maduro capture, says it didn't change US drug trafficking

WASHINGTON, DC: Rep Adam Smith (D-Wash) said that the dramatic US operation that led to the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has done little to alter the flow of illegal drugs into the United States. He expressed skepticism about the administration’s framing of the mission as a counter-narcotics effort and argued that it won't fundamentally change the drug flow. 

Adam Smith questions the removal of Nicolas Maduro

“No, I don’t,” Smith, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, said in an interview on NewsNation’s ‘The Hill’ on Sunday when asked if he thinks America is safer today without Maduro in power.

“Maduro was certainly part of the drug problem, but the cartels didn’t go anywhere. They didn’t just disappear yesterday because Maduro is no longer running Venezuela. I don’t think it fundamentally changed drug trafficking in America at all,” Smith continued.

Although Smith acknowledged the administration’s point that Maduro was not the rightfully elected leader of Venezuela, he suggested details about what comes next for the country seem to have escaped the Trump administration.'

“They took out Maduro. They don’t know what comes next, and they’re making it up as they go along. And that is deeply concerning,” Smith said in the interview.

“We don’t want this to turn into chaos. And yet, we removed the leader of the country.”

“He wasn’t the legitimate leader of the country, and that’s fair, but he was the leader of the country, the person who was in charge of it,” Smith added, referring to Maduro, “and we exercised a regime change operation to remove him. And the reasons for that are problematic as well.”

Nicolas Maduro's arrest and charges

Nicolas Maduro’s arrest followed a dramatic raid conducted by US special operations forces, who apprehended him at what officials described as a heavily fortified residence in Venezuela. According to sources briefed on the operation, the home was designed more like a military compound than a civilian dwelling.

Following his capture, Maduro was charged with a sweeping list of federal offenses, including narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices against the United States. 

A US official confirmed that the Army’s Delta Force carried out the arrest, while intelligence used to track Maduro’s movements was provided by the Central Intelligence Agency to the Department of War.