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Inside Politics

Now: Maduro Making First Court Appearance; Maduro Pleads Not Guilty To All Four Charges; Trump: "We're In Charge" Of Venezuela. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired January 05, 2026 - 12:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[12:00:00]

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: So, I want to see if we get a sense of what types of motions will be brought. The other thing is, what type of a timeline are we on here? All eyes are on this case and this trial. Now, typically in the federal courts, it would take a year plus to get to trial, but different judges tend to set different timelines.

I appeared in front of Judge Hellerstein more times than I could even recount for you. I think he falls somewhere in the middle. There are some judges who are known for pushing the pace. There are other judges who are known for being exasperatingly slow. Judge Hellerstein is somewhere in the middle, but keep in mind, he's 92 years old. He's been doing this for a long, long time. And I think he will understand that there's a lot of pressure here, a lot of reason to move this case as quickly as possible.

DANA BASH, CNN HOST, INSIDE POLITICS: And Elliot, Elie just said that it's -- there's a lot of sort of mundane, sort of things that happen, process that happens. But because of what this is, even the mundane is fascinating. And just even basic questions that we don't know the answer to right now about whether or not, I mean, I would assume that he's not going to get bail, but there are those questions that have to come up in an appearance like this at some point that will even for someone like Maduro.

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: When you talk about the questions that have to come up, it's important to really think about what the purpose of a hearing like this is.

BASH: Right.

WILLIAMS: Often it is for presenting the defendant with what his rights are, and saying that in the United States, no matter who you are, even if, quite frankly, the former de facto head of a foreign government, you are entitled to counsel. You are entitled to a speedy trial. You are entitled to not testify against yourself and all those things. Those are the kinds of things that will be presented to him.

Now, obviously, and just picking up with some of the things that Elie had said here. You know, the big questions are, to what extent is he going to challenge both the conditions of his arrest and apprehension, the conditions of his confinement right now, the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn is not a presidential palace, so you can expect that he would raise a challenge there. Now, a lot of these things he will likely lose, but a lot of them are lofty constitutional questions.

BASH: And Maduro has now entered the courtroom. And Brett McGurk, I do want you to weigh in on this at this moment. You did national security, worked in the national security sort of on the purview of several presidents, including the current president.

And just the fact that Maduro is in a courtroom in the United States of America, which does give him the rights that Americans have when we are going through the judicial system. We sort of are, I guess, now, taking for granted that this is where he is, but it wasn't necessarily a fait accompli that this is the way he would be treated.

BRETT MCGURK, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Look, I think it is a deterrent to anyone like Maduro that would want to not only jeopardize American interests, but he's a hostage taker. He's taken American hostage.

BASH: And as you're speaking, I just want to say that Lauren -- yeah, go ahead --

HONIG: Well, you're going to say --

BASH: -- that Maduro shackled at his ankles, and he walked in with his hands behind his back, but he wasn't shackled at his wrist.

HONIG: So, ankle shackles are unusual in the Southern District of New York. It's typical that a prisoner would be -- would be handcuffed, but those ankle cuffs are only used where the marshals and the bureau of prisons have determined that there's some sort of genuine risk here. Now is he going to take off and flee out of the courthouse? Of course not, but it shows the higher level of security and precaution.

BASH: And he's wearing headphones, presumably that's --

HONIG: For interpretation.

BASH: Yeah, for translation.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: You know, he doesn't speak English.

BASH: He doesn't speak English. Well, yeah. Sorry, just to go back to the shackles, because I want to say on what is actually happening in the courtroom. You know, part of the reason why you don't see people in shackles is because of the way that the American judicial system works, which is, you're innocent until proven guilty. And the visual of that tends to be -- to not be -- not be the way that people look if they're not guilty.

HONIG: Well, we're cognizant of that. This is why you would never do this in front of a jury, right? This is why people, even if they're prisoners, get to wear civilian clothes in front of a jury. But yes, we're sending messages with the way we do these things. BASH: Right.

WILLIAMS: Real quick. One of the things you'd asked me a second ago was this whole idea of him getting out. Would they release him prior to trial? And what -- basically, there's two reasons why a court would not. Number one, is the individual a threat to the community? And number two, is he a risk of flight? Do you expect him to run away or something like that?

Now look, if you think a guy might run away with the shackle. However, for both of -- both of those reasons, I think, to me, it seems quite obvious that there's no reason that any court would let him out, you know, as the head of a foreign government or, you know, accused an arc of trafficker.

BASH: I interrupted you because I want you to answer --

MCGURK: I think to see interesting here is foreign policy -- here he's in a court of law. I was a law clerk in the state, and why many, many years ago --

BASH: Oh, wow.

MCGURK: -- you have to prove your case. So, he has all the rights of an American criminal defendant. So, you have to prove the case with facts beyond a reasonable doubt, and that's what the government is going to have to do. That process can take a very long time, but he has now accorded all the rights of an American criminal defendant, and the government has to come in and prove the facts and prove the case, which the indictment is now, again today.

[12:05:00]

BASH: And just on that point, there were other ways for the U.S. government to try to bring him to justice, other than bringing him into an American court, correct?

MCGURK: Well, I mean, yeah, you could have -- like we do with some terrorists, you could have done it.

BASH: Yeah, well, that's what I mean.

MCGURK: But look, I think this is a -- let's see how this goes so far. And when I've been in the room about military decision making, I've always asked the question, what is our objective and what is the limitation of what we're trying to do? And I think that's a big open question here. So, Maduro is now going to be in our justice system. What is our objective in Venezuela? Is the big open question. I think, so far, this is going OK, but this is really just getting started.

BASH: And Kristen, I just want to continue to monitor what we're seeing on the screen from our reporters that the judge greeted Maduro. Maduro gave the judge a nod and a wave in return, and that he and his wife Cilia Flores are seated at the same table with their attorneys. I would imagine that this is something that the president is watching very intensely. HOLMES: They're all watching very closely. And I actually -- I have a question for our legal team as well, because I think I am not a lawyer, but I have covered a lot of this. This idea that these two attorneys that they have, Mark Donnelly, is one of them, Barry Pollack. I have been doing research. I have been asking people who are really aware of who is in and around SDNY. These are not two household names --

BASH: We didn't know Barry Pollack, right?

HOLMES: And what does that tell you? Because when this is a leader of Venezuela, it seems almost --

BASH: But can I just add, as you answer that, I can just, I'm not sure if we probably don't have room on the screen, but this is an important note as to who Barry Pollack, the attorney is. He currently represents Julian Assange.

HONIG: Yeah, Barry Pollack, neither of these individuals are known in the sort of small fraternity and sorority that is the New York City Bar. I hadn't heard the names. I've talked to John Miller. John Miller and I have not heard the names. They're not insiders in New York. But these defense teams are going to become teams. You can bet on that. Here's some information about Barry Pollack, certainly he has experience as a trial attorney. I'm sure both of them do.

BASH: And I just want to say that the judge, as we're speaking is explaining. He said, it's my job in these pretrial proceedings and eventually trial to ensure this is a fair trial and a fair proceeding. That's my job and that's my intent.

HONIG: So, that actually tells us an important piece of information, which is Judge Hellerstein, who is a senior judge, 92 years old. He has a reduced case load. He's keeping this case, right? He has the option. And sometimes judges do this, senior judges, they'll say, this is going to be a lot of time and effort. I'm going to send it to a full judge, a normal, you know, a non-senior judge, but he's going to keep it.

BASH: And John Miller, I want to bring you in. You were in New York. The judge is, as we are speak, now going through a shortened version of the indictment against Maduro. I know you are very interested in what evidence they are going to, at least signal that they're planning on providing.

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT & INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: Well, as our colleague was just mentioning, you know, they have to present a case, and the indictment, which is 25 pages of, you know, various charges, stems over 20 years. But when you look in it and kind of get past the storytelling of the case to what reads from this document, like something we're going to see in court.

You see a number of the people mentioned in it were close associates of the Maduros, both the husband and the wife. You see some of them have pled guilty in earlier versions of other prosecutions around this case. Those are the kinds of people that Elie Honig would tell you are very likely to appear as government witnesses and that they plead guilty and they're now serving time. And those are the kinds of people who are often looking for some consideration to tell their story.

That gives you the kind of case where you're going to hear stories of planes being loaded with tons of narcotics in the presidential hangar at Simon Bolivar Airport, where you're going to hear about recorded conversations between DEA informants and relatives of the Maduros, where they talk about their association with the terrorist group the FARC, which also is a major narcotics entity.

Now they're trying to raise $20 million for an election to the Venezuela assembly for Maduro before he was president. You're going to hear about allegations that not only did they accept bribes, issued diplomatic passports to drug traffickers, so that they could bypass customs without searches, that they issued orders for kidnappings and beatings of drug traffickers who weren't paying bribes or owed bribes or weren't paying on time.

[12:10:00]

This is the kind of case that is going to, A, take more than a year to get to trial, when you consider the amount of discovery involved. And B, involve a lengthy time in court when and if it does get going. So, as we look at these lawyers who are there today, we don't know that those are going to be the lawyers who carry this through, or whether they're the lawyers for these initial stages where they may argue the political nature of the case rather than the evidence.

BASH: That's really interesting. Thanks, John. We'll come back to you as we continue to monitor what's happening. And again, he is -- Maduro is in court, in a U.S. court, federal court, the Southern District of New York. As we speak, along with his wife and their attorneys and the judge is going through the version of the indictment. John just talked a little bit about some of the evidence --

WILLIAMS: Yeah. To pick up on one thing -- to pick up on one thing John had said about sort of how the defense team might evolve. There's the sort of two, at least two buckets of things happening here. There's the basic what happens in a criminal courtroom? What are the rights the defendant has? How does the defendant answer to them, and so on.

But then also a bunch of quite complex national security and foreign policy questions that, frankly, most criminal defense attorneys are simply not equipped to answer in a court. He's going to raise those kinds of questions, both his challenges of the indictment and how he's apprehended and so on. And I would think other attorneys who are skilled in those matters are likely to come on.

HONIG: Picking up on John's reporting just now, as usual, John has extraordinary insight here, and John is reporting that there are part of the evidence, includes tape conversations between informants and other people around Maduro about the types of criminal activities they're engaging in.

So importantly, we don't know whether there's any tapes of Maduro himself that may be unlikely, but that type of tape of what we call coconspirators speaking with one another. That can be used in court, that can be powerful evidence. So even if you don't have the leader himself or herself on tape, you can play others around them talking.

BASH: And Judge Hellerstein just asked Maduro to confirm his identity. Standing Maduro responded in Spanish, confirming his name, and said he is the president of Venezuela.

WILLIAMS: Well, I mean, the indictment does say -- the indictment does say he's president, but also says he's the de facto leader. Now they were very careful to use that language because --

BASH: He wasn't actually duly elected.

WILLIAMS: Well, he wasn't duly elected, and that's one of the arguments that the administration know, right?

HOLMES: And that's one of the things that we were actually just discussing, was this idea that Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, has come out there and said that he is a fugitive from American justice. Now you are hearing that echoed throughout the administration because that is the line that they need to repeat legally.

One of the things that I said was, you know, I woke up on Saturday morning and it wasn't in my bingo card that we were going to have kidnapped the leader of a foreign country. The answer was, it's not the leader of a foreign country. It is a fugitive of justice. And that is what they are hammering home right now, because, again, this is now their legal argument they have moved on from.

BASH: And just to kind of underscore how rare this is and how unusual this is, just as never mind the law, but just the protocol and the norms of how leaders around the united -- around the world work. There's a pretty contentious debate going on as we speak in the United Nations.

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, that's right. And it would not be legal for the United States to carry out this operation against someone who was actually the leader of a foreign country. And so that's why, to Kristen's point, we have heard this administration say --

BASH: Sorry, I just want to interrupt you for one second, because what's happening in the courtroom right now was really interesting. We mentioned that Maduro said that he is the president of Venezuela. Well, the judge said, that's we're not going to get into that right now. I just want to know, are you Nicolas Maduro? And then Maduro confirmed that he was. And before that, Maduro continued to elaborate in Spanish, and a translator said, on his behalf. I was captured at my home in Caracas, Venezuela. Go ahead, Kylie.

ATWOOD: Right, and we know that he was captured out of his home on, you know, in the wee hours of Saturday morning as a result of this used military option. But you know, you have to imagine that Trump administration officials right now are watching this with quite some glee, because it has been months now that they have been reflecting back on this indictment specifically. And we never knew exactly where they were going with their Venezuela policy, but they were making the case.

BASH: And it's -- forgive me, just to underscore that he is getting the rights of and the process of any American he's been read his rights, and he is pleading not guilty. And Maduro, through a translator, said, I have it in my hands for the first time. He also said, he'd rather read it himself through, but he did enter a plea of not guilty.

HONIG: All right, away we go, now we have a court proceeding. This is all standard, by the way, the asking, are you, in fact, Nicolas Maduro. That's not meant to be some moment of drama, that's --

BASH: I'm innocent. I am not guilty.

[12:15:00]

HONIG: Well, there you go. So that's the entry of the plea. And one thing that's happening here is Maduro seems to be answering a little bit more than the judge is asking for, right? Saying, I am the president of Venezuela. I was arrested in my home in Caracas. But there's a dynamic when you have a translation issue, it's harder for a judge to control the proceedings, because if someone's speaking in English, the judge can just cut him off if he's saying too much. But when there's a translation issue, the whole question has to go through and then come back. So, we'll see to what extent Maduro is disciplined and stays within the parameters of the court.

BASH: Brett, as this is happening, as I mentioned to Kylie, there is a debate going on at the U.N. and the representative from Russia just accused the U.S. of neocolonialism.

MCGURK: I noticed Mike Waltz, our ambassador at the U.N. today said, this is not a war. This is a law enforcement -- law enforcement executing a warrant. That is very much the line the administration has taken. Look, Vladimir Putin does not need a permission structure to do what he's doing in Ukraine and elsewhere. He might try to use this as an example, I don't know.

But I think overall, this use of very effective, very decisive use of American power. Again, if we don't get sucked into a mission creep situation, which is still, you know -- on that, no pun intended. I think it has a deterrent effect to other adversaries around the world, no doubt.

ATWOOD: But there are some who are also arguing that it could give other adversaries the green light right to potentially go after world leaders who they deem are illegitimate and go in and arrest them. So, it's kind of, they're two sides --

(CROSSTALK)

BASH: -- going and getting Zelenskyy. There's China and Taiwan. You don't buy it?

MCGURK: We tried it in the first night of the war to try to get Zelenskyy, you know, he couldn't.

BASH: Maduro said, forgive me, I am a decent man.

MCGURK: This is going to be an epic trial. If it comes to trial, you're going to unprecedented legal, novel legal arguments about sovereign immunity and about the way this was conducted. I think there's a parallel to Noriega, but this will be fascinating law and facts, again, matching the facts of the law. He's entitled to all the protections of any criminal defendant. And this is not just foreign policy, national security, it's going to be, it all intersects.

BASH: Yeah. And Evan Perez is at the courthouse. Evan, the judge just cut off Maduro saying a plea of not guilty will be entered. And Pollack, who is Maduro's attorney, confirmed that he was entering a plea of not guilty. Again, Hellerstein, the judge is cutting off Maduro every time he tries to say, I am still the president of my country. So, the judge is trying to, it seems to me to make this just kind of a run of the mill. Are you innocent or guilty person, John Doe? But he's saying, no, no, this is not run of the mill. I claim to be president of a country, and I was brought here.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, exactly. And look, I mean, what you're watching is a little bit of a tussle between the judge trying to regain control of this -- of this hearing, because usually how this works is you, you have a presentment. And then a judge goes through the motions of trying to figure out, OK, do we want to enter a plea now? Do we want to move this to the arraignment and on all of that? That did not happen.

Here you can see that Maduro is using the -- as Elie points out, because he has a translator, and obviously, you know, he does still claim to be the leader of Venezuela. He's used to running things himself. He's used to being able to issue orders and decide how things going.

BASH: Right.

PEREZ: And so, what you're seeing there, you see, Maduro told the judge that he's talking, spoken to his attorney about the indictment and he wants to enter that plea. I am innocent. I'm not guilty of anything that is mentioned here. Again, which gives you a sense of how this is going to go, going forward.

Now, one of the things that we will now see them go through is Flores has to -- has to answer the same questions that Maduro was asked. You know, she confirms her identity and, you know, goes through the whole process whether she wants to enter a plea as well, Dana. And, you know, obviously the next stage of this will be, you know, how this -- how this will be govern.

I suspect one of the things that you hear from Barry Pollack and Mark Robinson is, you know, the way the U.S. government has managed this entire process, there's been of a bit of a show aspect of this. They paraded him in front of cameras. This is very unusual in federal court. Here in the federal system, usually you don't have mug shots of people released because of the danger that it -- that it, you know, poses for their ability to present their defense in a sentence to proven guilty. That is now how things have gone over the last few days here in New York, Dana.

BASH: Yeah, I mean, because this is an attempt at a geopolitical deterrent, as Brett was just saying, as much as it is about a hearing and a process going through --

PEREZ: There's a showman -- there's a showman aspect of the Trump administration.

[12:20:00]

BASH: Totally, yeah. Thanks, Evan. We'll get back to you. Manu, I just want to bring you in here. And as we were talking, Evan and I were talking, his wife, Cilia Flores pleaded not guilty, and she identified herself as the first lady of the Republic of Venezuela. So, this -- there's an intent there that is not going unnoticed by the judge.

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: This is, what a moment. This is really to see these -- these two were just the head of the state. What, a few days ago, and now so many questions around the world. I do want to bring back to the point that you guys were mentioning about the law enforcement operation aspect of the argument that is being made that this is not a military proceeding, because that is the argument we expect to hear today.

When there's so many questions from members of Congress who are returning tonight to understand exactly the objective here. There's going to be a classified briefing tonight with the leaders of Congress who did not get a briefing at a time because of that precise argument, because the administration is saying, this is not a military proceeding, this was a law enforcement proceeding.

So, we didn't have to get an authorization for Congress from going in and doing this. And we did not have to notify the leaders of Congress, who typically would be told about this ahead of time. So, it is not just something they're making case today that we know, but also the political argument as well.

BASH: Most law enforcement arrests don't include 150 military --

RAJU: Exactly, right.

BASH: -- which is the argument that you're hearing. I want to go to Caracas, Venezuela. Our journalist Mary Triny Mena is joining us now. Mary, you've been doing such amazing reporting there, and you're really giving us a sense of what the people of Venezuela are thinking as all of these events unfold. What are you hearing about this moment that Maduro is in court?

MARY TRINY MENA, JOURNALIST: Yeah. While that is happening in New York, here in Venezuela. Nicolas Maduro son is doing an appearance at the parliament. He is one of the law makers that is opening the session of the parliament this year from 2016 and 2031. Right now they are speaking about the new authorities in the parliament. But before the formal opening of the session of the parliament he had the chance to speak on behalf of his father and his wife, Cilia Flores.

Basically, Maduro Guerra said that his family has been harassed by the U.S., and the object is -- the objective is to stay mobilized in the country to demand the release of them and he signals that he is willing to be open. As Delcy Rodriguez sends the new president in charge to engage into negotiation, into conversations with any Latin American country or American country that wants to engage in negotiation with Venezuela, including the United States.

So, this is a significant change in the speech coming from the persons who are ruling the country right now. And it is also significant what I was hearing about Maduro the presentation in court because he in the past few months, he spoke many times in English on national television. He says he knew well New York. He visited multiple times as a chancellor for Chavez and then as a president. And every time he had the chance to speak in English, he did so in national television back in Venezuela.

BASH: All right, thank you so much for that. We will definitely be back to you as these court proceedings continue here in the United States. Brett, can we talk for a moment about the woman who, even though the president says that he's running Venezuela, the woman who is about to be sworn in as the, you know, effective president, the new leader Delcy Rodriguez. She is incredibly controversial. She is certainly not somebody who was ever elected in a democratic way.

MCGURK: Well, this is not regime change, because the entire regime is still intact. And in fact, members of Maduro's cabinet, the defense minister, and others, are indicted just like Maduro. But thinking about Delcy Rodriguez, she's -- the administration wants her to basically take power in Venezuela, and I think it's very difficult for her. If Maduro is saying, right now, I am the president of Venezuela, I am still the president.

BASH: And forgive me. And Rodriguez said that the day after. She said that publicly that Maduro is still the president. That's a fair confusing.

MCGURK: This is going to be extremely complicated. And it's pretty clear that when the president came out with a press conference on Saturday, that kind of the day after plan really has not been fully thought through. And I think they're hoping that Rodriguez can have some semblance of control. But President Trump yesterday even mentioned the possibility of elections, and who knows, under Venezuelan law, to extend it matters here.

If the president -- presidency is vaccine, the vice president assumes authority and has to call for elections within 30 days. So, that could be a path forward. I think nobody -- nobody knows where this is heading.

[12:25:00]

BASH: Right, which is why the moment that I don't believe it's happened, but it's expected to happen today, that the national assembly formalizes that moment. When they formalize that Rodriguez is the new president, that is technically supposed to kick in the 30-day calendar to new elections. I just also want to point out something that I talked about with Senator Tom Cotton, who is the chair of the intelligence committee, yesterday.

Delcy Rodriguez also happens to be the oil minister.

MCGURK: Right.

BASH: What does that tell you?

MCGURK: I tell you oil -- you know, I served in the Trump administration, and actually I was working on the counter ISIS campaign in Syria, and we were fighting ISIS in Syria, and the president used to always talk about the oil in Syria. You might remember a lot of this, and there isn't actually that much oil in Syria. Here in Venezuela, there's a lot of oil. There's a lot of oil, but to actually get it out of the ground is going to require -- experts are looking at this, tens of billions of dollars and years of investments, and who's going to make that investment, and where does the security come from?

So, even the idea that you're going to have new agreements with this interim Venezuela government for new oil contracts, that is going to take a massive amount of time. And so, again, this is all tremendously uncertain. I would say one thing though, you do want the security apparatus to remain intact. I mean, the one thing you don't want is a vacuum and civil war breaking out. That was really the mistake in Iraq of basically disbanding the entire -- getting the security --

BASH: And is that part of the dynamic here is -- is how much the military matters.

MCGURK: Yeah. And it is an open question whether the opposition were they to come in, whether the security services would actually recognize their authority.

BASH: Elie and Elliot, I do want to just go back to what's happening in the courtroom. Yeah, Hellerstein is telling prosecutors to disclose normal discovery in the case to the defense attorneys, translation.

WILLIAMS: Right, prosecutors have an obligation under the law to provide information to the defense attorney to help them to prepare in their own defense. It's an obligation that the law provides. So, for instance, things like exonerating information or information that might clear the defendant that would be helpful for the defense through, you know, that they have to provide that number one.

And then number two, this point about consular notification, which came before that an individual who is a foreign national in an American court does have a right to consult with the consulate of their country to make sure that under international law, they are getting basic due process protections.

BASH: I just want to ask about what's happening right now, Elie. So, Maduro is saying that he's able to follow along, and he's taking notes, and he wants his notes to be respected, and he's allowed to keep them.

HONIG: He will be allowed to keep them. You are entitled, as a criminal defendant, to take notes. He'll be able take them back to the MDC, the Metropolitan Detention Center, with him to follow up on two important points. Elliot just made, discovery. That's the obligation prosecutors have to turn over all their evidence, all evidence that could be helpful to a defendant, to that defendant. Prosecutors better not screw that up here, because it's a thing that prosecutors do sometimes misstep on and heaven help them.

BASH: You're not speaking from experience.

HONIG: I don't know. I'm perfect. I've made all these -- everything I talk about is a mistake I've made, I promise you. But there is going to be such focus on this case, and if prosecutors do not comply with their discovery obligations, or what we call the brady obligations, to give information that's helpful to the defendant. That could really harm this case, could even result in dismissal. They better not make any mistake there.

To the consular point. This goes to Brett's point and Elliot's point earlier. How complicated is this now? Because ordinarily a citizen of a foreign nation can consult with the consulate. Where does the leadership stand? Are the authorities going to back me? Well, here you have this guy who claims, three minutes ago, he's the president of the nation. Apparently, not. So, an extra layer of complexity.

BASH: Oh, this is interesting. Mr. Maduro is not seeking release at this time.

HONIG: Not all that unusual. So, in a case like this, where there are very serious charges, where the likelihood of bail is extremely low, you often will see a defense lawyer say, we're going to hold off. We're not going to ask for bail right now. We may do it at some point in the future. Now, again, there's no way that Nicolas Maduro will be bailed. But rather than just make an argument today, hours after the arrest, a lot of times, the defense service say, we're going to put that on hold. We're going to reserve our rights for mayor (Ph).

BASH: Yeah. And which is exactly what they said. They're going to make that application --

ATWOOD: Also just a question, but will the consular visits be complicated because Venezuela doesn't have an official diplomatic mission in the United States, I mean, Brett?

HONIG: Where do they go.

(CROSSTALK)

ATWOOD: Speak with Maduro on behalf of the Venezuela government, is an open question, right?

MCGURK: Yeah. I don't know.

ATWOOD: Yeah. BASH: I want to go back to John Miller and talk a little bit more about the attorneys representing both Maduro and his wife. So, John, I'm actually getting a text from somebody I know well, who is a well- known attorney, saying that even though Barry Pollack is not a well- known guy in the Southern District, which, as you both know, is a very sort of tight knit group of lawyers. He is well known here in D.C. What does that tell you?

MILLER: Well, it tells us that this case, well, we got to go in sections. Now, there was a scramble over the weekend, and I talked to some of these lawyers. I know lawyers who were calling Elie Honig, trying to figure out who they could hire for this case. And this is the kind of thing to quote Elie Honig, where you don't have President Maduro on the phone