The arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has had a butterfly effect like nothing we have seen before.
Donald Trump is seeing resistance from both sides of the aisle over this, which makes the most recent narrative from the left a bit more biting.
Namely, there are Democrats who are now calling for Trump to be impeached.
Noriega was a military figure in Panama who rose to power during the Reagan-Bush era.
Initially, he had the support of the United States, but as he leaned more into a dictatorship, that backing waned, and in the late 1980s, he was indicted on drug charges.
In 1989, we invaded Panama, captured Noriega, and tried him on drug and racketeering charges.
I bring this up because, oddly enough, it was 36 years to the day after Noriega was arrested that Trump approved a mission to arrest Maduro. Something in my gut tells me that the president had it planned that way all along.
The Trump administration is surely going to lean heavily into the Noriega arrest to defend criticism of the Maduro arrest.
To that point, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche stated, "The United States has an absolute legal right to go and arrest people charged with horrible crimes.”
He continued, “What we did was not only right and not only legal, but it’s what the American people expect us to do when we file charges against individuals like him."
Blanche later added, "This was an infrastructure and a very organized group of individuals from all over the world, different gangs and different terrorist organizations that work together to bring drugs into this country. And that’s what I expect the evidence and trial will show.”
I have stated many times that Democrats are putting an impeachment list together for Trump in case they take back the House, and this arrest was just added to it.
Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-IL) stated, "Many Americans woke up to a sick sense of déjà vu. Under the guise of liberty, an administration of warmongers has lied to justify an invasion and is dragging us into an illegal, endless war so they can extract resources and expand their wealth.”
Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY), part of the legal impeachment team for the Democrats during Trump’s first term, added, "This violation of the United States Constitution is an impeachable offense. I urge my Republican colleagues in the House of Representatives to finally join Democrats in reasserting congressional authority by holding this president accountable for this gross violation of the Constitution."
The problem for Trump is that there are Republicans in the House and Senate who are furious over the operation and would likely support the impeachment. I believe such articles would definitely pass in the House, but the trial in the Senate would be another matter altogether. There is clearly resistance to Trump in the Senate, but it would not be anywhere near the dozen or so votes Democrats would need to be successful. But the way things are going for Trump right now, you just never know.
