Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said the state was looking into possibly bringing charges against deposed Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who was captured by the United States in a military strike on Saturday.
“We are looking very seriously… to be able to bring potentially a state case against Nicolás Maduro,” DeSantis said at a news conference Tuesday.
Maduro, along with his wife Cilia Flores, was arrested and flown to New York to face federal charges on narco-terrorism conspiracy and possession of machine guns and destructive devices, among others.
After DeSantis spoke at the U.S. Coast Guard Air Station in Clearwater to propose congressional stock trading accountability, he took questions and offered comments on the operation in Venezuela.
“[Maduro] was obviously very involved with bringing drugs particularly to Florida, but you know what he would also do, and this is not in the federal indictment in New York, he would empty his prisons and send them to America across the border, and we’d end up with some of these people in Florida, Tren de Aragua gang members that were in prison there. And he did that, and so to me, that is a very hostile act,” the governor said.
He did not immediately provide details on what those charges could be, but said “we’ve had people in Florida that have been victimized” by Tren de Aragua, and that he would be supportive if Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier filed those charges.
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