Marco Rubio, Secretary Of Bullsh*t

We watch the Sunday shows so you never have to.

Marco Rubio, the former Florida Republican senator, presidential candidate and current secretary Of State, appeared on the Sunday political shows thrice (ABC’s This Week, NBC’s Meet The Press and CBS’s Face The Nation) to justify Donald Trump’s illegal whatever-it-is into Venezuela.

Let’s focus on Rubio’s interview with host George Stephanopoulos.

Stephanopoulos began with what should have been an easy question for Rubio, since it’s the most obvious question he would have been asked:

STEPHANOPOULOS: President Trump was pretty clear yesterday. He said the United States was going to run Venezuela. Under what legal authority?

Rubio did not answer the question, but stammered into his first of many instances that day of saying the quiet part loud:

RUBIO: Under -- well, first of all, what’s going to happen here is that we have a quarantine on their oil.

Wait, we thought this was supposed to be about drugs? Certainly that is what JD Vance has been saying in his very important role as Trump administration “reply guy” on Twitter.

Stephanopoulos tried once again by repeating “What is the legal authority for the United States to be running Venezuela?” At this moment, Rubio got back somewhat on script:

RUBIO: As far as what our legal authority is on the quarantine, I’m -- very simple. We have court orders. These are sanctioned boats and we get orders from courts to go after and seize these sanctions. So there -- that’s -- I don’t know, is a court not a legal authority?

Short answer: they have no legal authority.

Under this justification, we guess Rubio is saying it's now legal to use domestic law enforcement to invade foreign nations. If this is true, then every nation in the world can invade any other to "arrest" its leader on domestic charges, valid or trumped up.

Hmmmm.

But, speaking of the court orders that Rubio is citing as justification, let’s take a look at what the unsealed four-count indictment against Maduro says.

1. In Counts One and Two, it admits that less than 10 to 13 percent of all cocaine trafficking has come through Venezuela at any point, citing the State Department’s own assessment (pg. 331).

2. In Counts Three and Four, it charges Maduro and his men for having/conspiracy to possess “machine guns and destructive devices.” That’s right, America is charging a foreign leader with “has some guns.”

3. Minor nitpick, but indicative of the incompetence of Pam Bondi’s DOJ is the very first sentence of this indictment:

   

   Venezuela cannot “import” into the United States, by definition of the word “import.” Idiots.

Anyway, Rubio was asked who is running Venezuela, now that they took its leader. Rubio answered who was overseeing the operation:

RUBIO: So, it -- that is a Department of War operation.

There is no Department of War, sorry.

This, of course, made Stephanopoulos ask again about the legal authority to do this, considering they did not get congressional approval.

Rubio contradicted himself once again:

RUBIO: It wasn’t necessary because this is not an invasion. We didn’t occupy a country. This was an arrest operation. This was a law enforcement operation. He was arrested on the ground in Venezuela by FBI agents, read his rights and removed from the country. Have you -- I encourage everyone. I know it’s Sunday. People are busy. But I -- you know, the indictment has now been unsealed. People should read this indictment. They should read this indictment.

Yes, it’s above, it’s written very poorly. People should definitely read it, with a red pen in their hands.

Anyway, this was a military invasion, which you can tell by how many people it killed (80 so far, including civilians). Further, bringing FBI agents, who have zero authority outside the United States, to read the read him his rights in America while “arresting” him in Venezuela is nonsensical. It’s the whole reason we have international courts and agencies like INTERPOL. According to the FBI’s own website:

The FBI, however, conducts investigations abroad only when invited by the host country. In most cases, our international partners gather evidence and make arrests on behalf of, or in close cooperation with, the Bureau.

So, unless we missed the memo where Nicolás Maduro’s government invited and worked with the FBI to overthrow itself, we are pretty sure this was an illegal “arrest” and operation. FBI operations usually don’t result in large civilian casualties, outside of Waco.

Before the interview ended, Stephanopoulos called out one more contradiction in the Trump administration’s justification for Maduro’s arrest:.

STEPHANOPOULOS: [Vice Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee Mark Warner] said, “You cannot credibly argue that drug tracking charges demand invasion in one case while issuing a pardon in another.” What’s your response?

Warner and Stephanopoulos are referring to former Hounduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who was convicted of flooding the US with literal tons of cocaine. He was quoted as saying he wanted to “shove the drugs right up the noses of the gringos by flooding the United States with cocaine,” while earning millions for the world’s most violent cartels. He was sentenced to 45 years, but Trump gave him a pardon a month ago at the urging of Trump’s old scumbag pal and literal 1966 Batman villain Roger Stone.

Why wouldn’t you trust a guy dressed like this?

Rubio couldn’t square the logic for Maduro’s arrest with the Juan Orlando Hernández pardon.

RUBIO: Well, the president has the pardon authority. He’s the one that reviewed the file with the folks at the White House to make these pardon decisions, and I refer questions do them because I was not involved in the pardon process so I can’t comment on that because I wasn’t involved in that process. […] In the case of Maduro, look, it’s very simple. This guy was indicted. […]

STEPHANOPOULOS: Hernandez was convicted.

RUBIO: It was enforced yesterday.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Hernandez was convicted by a jury.

RUBIO: I understand. You’re asking me -- the pardon authority is something that, you know, I’m not involved in my role. I’m not criticizing it. I can’t just comment on it because I just wasn’t involved in those deliberations.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Do you support it?

RUBIO: I wasn’t involved in those deliberations. I haven’t looked at the case file. I haven’t looked at the arguments made by -- you know, I’ve got a bunch of other things going on that are within my purview as Secretary of State and national security adviser. But pardons aren’t one of them.

Sounds to us like Marco Rubio has absolutely no fucking idea what any part of the Trump administration is doing, on Venezuela or anything else.

Have a week.

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