Judging Freedom - Anya Parampil: Could the Venezuela Case Expose a CIA Narco-State?

Episode Date: January 5, 2026

Anya Parampil: Could the Venezuela Case Expose a CIA Narco-State?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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What if that government is best, which governs least? What if it is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong? What if it is better to perish fighting for freedom than to live as a slave? What if freedom's greatest hour of danger is now? Problem with my mic. There we go. Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for judging freedom. Today is Monday, January 5th, 2026. Our dear friend Anya Parenthold joins us now. Anya, I can think of nobody in the United States better to address the issues of Venezuela. than you. Thank you very much for joining us. I deeply appreciate your time. What can you tell us about the government of President Maduro and its legitimacy prior to the invasion and kidnapping of Saturday night? The United States is obviously operating according to this phony legal

jurisdiction and framework that it has crafted since 2019 when Donald Trump first initiated his covert regime change and activity against Venezuela in the form of what was actually just a naked coup attempt where they recognized a shadow government and infrastructure that allowed the U.S. government to seize control of Venezuelan assets in the United States, including gold that was stored in Citibank that is now in the New York Federal Reserve, including Citgo Petroleum, Venezuela's largest international asset, which as a result of very, very tricky legal thuggery that the Guido administration carried out, the U.S. government actually put Citgo, which was, again, Venezuela's largest international asset worth billions of dollars,

upwards of $6 billion, it consists of oil pipelines and refineries, a whole infrastructure in the United States on top of the gas stations that we all know. The U.S., through its collaboration with the Guido figures here, we're able to seize control of SICO and put it up for auction. And now it turns out that the hedge funder, Paul Singer, a major donor, one of the top donors to Marco Rubio, the U.S. Secretary of State, is the one that is going to step in and gain access to Citgo and a fire sale of U.S. courts and benefit from all of this. And so now, under round two of the Trump administration, we see Rubio, again, Singer's asset,

escalate this phony legal framework, which now has allowed for the theft of Venezuela's assets. and more recently provided the context in which the Trump administration declared narco drug groups that they claim operate in Venezuela to be narco-terrorist groups and then claim that Maduro is at the head of this operation. This is the legal framework and narrative at the heart of the indictment that was levied against Maduro in order to justify his arrest in Venezuela. Now, that's a separate question. All of this is information that is separate from the reality on the ground in Venezuela, which is that Maduro since 2019 and since before, since he was elected following Chavez's death, has acted as the head of state,

the legitimate head of state in Venezuela, with control of the military, with control of the diplomatic offices, control of the borders, and all of the government. ministries. But in order for this assault to have taken place on sovereign Venezuelan territory, I think it's worth questioning whether all of that legitimacy or framework remained in place on the Venezuelan side because I don't know how otherwise this operation could have taken

place. Not that I know for sure how or who would have been involved in and making that happen, but I definitely have questions about how this all was possible. Didn't Trump attempt a coup? You mentioned the name Guaido during his first term. I seem to recall, I don't know if it was a state of the union, but some address he was given to a joint session of Congress where he introduced this young man from the gallery who got a sustained standing ovation from members of Congress, and he introduced him as the president of Venezuela. Was he the president of Venezuela when Trump introduced him as that? No, he never had any legitimate authority. And the United States has since then even moved on

from claiming that Guaido as president in this indictment. It just refers to Maduro as the de facto illegitimate president, but you're more of a legal expert than I about what exactly that means on how the United States views Nicholas Maduro. What can you tell us about Delsey Rodriguez, the new president or the acting president? I'm not certain what her title is, but she was sworn in to be the head of the government on Sunday morning. Delci Rodriguez has served as a vice president for the bulk of Maduro terms in office. But she's a very powerful individual beyond simply her status as the vice president. In the last several years, she's consolidated authority over the economy ministry, the oil company,

pedavesa, the state oil company. And she and her brother also are very significant players in the Venezuelan parliament. He acted as a speaker. And he's the spokesperson. for the government. And Delsey herself has in her position, in these many positions with these many hats that she wears, has built very strong relations with Chinese diplomats with the Russians and also people in the United States, including U.S. financial actors on Wall Street. I know this based on my contact and relationship with people that work on Wall Street and that know her and work with her and respect her. And I'm not saying that even to suggest that she's a malicious actor in all of this. I think that someone who's going to lead Venezuela now probably would want to

have good relations with all actors in this new world that we're living in where countries are rising in their power. And so I think when Trump gets on television and says that she's going to do whatever we want and now we control the oil, there's no. no evidence to suggest so far that Delcy, and I'm calling her Delcy because that's what everybody calls her. I've met her several times, but I'm not saying this because I have a personal relationship with her, everybody, whether in media, whether they like her, they don't. In the streets, they call her Delsey. That's just how she's referred to. So she has good relations with U.S. journalist. When I was there once for a meeting, she had the day before been playing

ping pong with a group of Chinese diplomats that were in town. She's a very competitive ping pong player. That's kind of something interesting about her. But she is definitely someone who is connected to Chevismo and respected in the streets. And so when, again, when Rubio and Trump get up there and same mission accomplished, the reality is there is no evidence that the regime, itself has been dislodged from power. Delsey worked under Maduro. She is the vice president. She is the person that should constitutionally serve at the moment. There hasn't been a real regime change. So are those forces that the United States have been sanctioning and attacking for years now going to step aside and let the United States come in? I don't know. But I think Trump and Rubio,

when they get out there and say they're controlling everything, have clearly spoken to soon. And Americans who think that Deli Rodriguez and what's still there of the government or the regime are just going to easily play ball with the United States, don't really know anything about the country. Here's what Trump said, Anya, in his own rather thuggish way, threatened Venezuela's acting president Delsi Rodriguez and said if she doesn't give U.S. corporations, quote, total access to the oil and other things, she will, quote, pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro. What is he talking about? He's levying threats once again, but the reality is the United States went ahead with

this option of not an entire regime change mission because they, they can't commit to the kind of military escalation that it would require to seize the oil fields by force. So I see a lot of people claiming that those who've made statements suggesting that if there were regime change in Venezuela, the country would collapse into civil war and that generals would be seizing oil fields are all proven wrong because this has taken place and none of that's happened. But the reality is regime change has not occurred. This country is stable because Chavismo, the entire regime that operated under Maduro, remains in place. And so there is no way to guarantee that the United States are, that, that, that these

claims that Trump is running the show and Pete Hegsteth and Margar Rubio are running the country are actually true. We would have to see that actions to speak louder than words on the Venezuelan side as well, because people obviously, like I said, are going to have questions about how Maduro was so easily dislodged from a military base as he slept. How well regarded or how accepted is she as the legitimate head of state? I mean, she ran as this vice president. Rubio says he was never actually the president. Was she ever in Rubio's mind to the extent you can permeate that?

Was she ever actually the valid vice president? I mean, stated differently. does the public view her now as the valid, legitimate, embraced head of the government? The public have been in the streets, millions of Venezuelans, despite the AI videos you may have seen circulated by some MAGA accounts, millions of Venezuelans have been in the streets for the last day, two days, demanding that Nicholas Maduro, their president, return. And that's been the energy in the streets as far as I can tell from here. There have been plenty of demonstrations in Miami and Madrid and throughout the United States in Europe celebrating his ouster. And I would ask

all of those Venezuelans that are in those countries celebrating this, whether or not they plan to buy a ticket to return to the country right now. Because if it's free and this is what they wanted, they should go back instead of continuing to hold our country hostage with their votes, which is what they plan to do instead and what they're openly stating they plan to do, on social media. Beyond that, like I said, Delci Rodriguez was the vice president of Maduro for her to step in. That is what is constitutionally valid. And as I also mentioned, she already enjoyed all of this authority in the government, very powerful woman before Maduro was ousted. So yeah, I think that people in Venezuela are probably not surprised

that she's running the country now. Should the CIA be worried that at, some point during the litigation against Nicholas Maduro, the CIA's own drug trafficking will be made known in an American courtroom. It's absolutely possible, and that's why I think all of us are interested in the matter should be paying close attention to this trial when it takes place. And I should note that this indictment was written by the same prosecutor that put together the case against one Orlando Hernandez, the Honduran president whom Trump recently pardoned, who was actually very heavily implicated in drug running according to that case. The Maduro indictment is a bit different concerns cases largely in Mexico from what I've

gathered so far and incidents that took place years ago before the United States actually came forward with this narco terror designation. So it appears as though, again, they've created this legal designation in order to justify something based on retro evidence that they find retroactively in peace together, a narrative that might even be, again, outside of U.S. jurisdiction. But this is how it all worked. I should again point out, because this is something I write about in the book a lot, is that much of this legal trickery was put together and coordinated by William Barr when he was

Attorney General under Trump One. He's responsible for putting the legal bounty on Maduro's head back then, which they then increased and doubled down on with this narco-terrorism designation. This indictment was basically prepared under Barr. So I think this is a, this is probably an agenda and a program that Pam Bondi herself didn't put together, and that was in place before she came into office. And William Barr is so key to all of this because he not only coordinated all of that legal strategy under Trump One, he was actually responsible for writing the legal justification for the U.S. invasion of Panama in 1992 or one. and I know I'm going to get dates wrong on this as I go on, but that legal justification

mirrors pretty much the operation that we just saw play out in Venezuela, and it took place on the exact same date, January 3rd, just a couple decades apart. So these are the same figures, William Barr in particular, that have been, I guess, implementing the Monroe and what's now the Don Row doctrine, according to Donald Trump, for quite a while now, and their criminality is pretty naked for everyone to see. I don't think most people are taking this seriously, that this is about drugs and anything that's actually concerned legality. Were Nicholas Maduro and his wife the head of a massive drug operation while he was in office?

As far as I'm aware, Venezuela is not one of the leading producers of any narcotic, including cocaine, which is what this indictment is focused on. Cocaine is coming out of Ecuador, Bolivia, and Peru. Particularly as we've discussed before on this program, the head of state in Ecuador is deeply implicated in international cocaine smuggling. With his family's banana company, essentially you haven't been demonstrated. and proven in court to be a front for cartels. They use his family's name, Noboa, to ship. It's like they're pretending their chiquita bananas, but inside it's actually cocaine. And his family has already been legally implicated, and he's running the state openly in Ecuador right now. I think Trump is levying threats against Mexico and other countries where clearly they're more heavily

implicated in the trade that is coming to the United States. As far as I'm aware, Venezuela is not one of those states. If you were going to make a list of the top targets in the region, I don't think it would be Nicholas Maduro. Do you know who agrees with everything you just said? Trump's own drug enforcement administration. If you go on their website, I don't know what's there this morning, but as of last week, they were giving Venezuela a clean bill of health. Tell us about, a little bit about Venezuelan society. You wrote this terrific book that you and I have discussed before corporate coup, Venezuela and the end of US Empire.

What do you mean by the subtitle, The End of US Empire? Well, this is where I think we're gonna get to the heart of what's going on with Venezuela right now. When I wrote that book, Venezuela had overcome the worst of its economic and political sabotage at the hands of the United States. There were times in the mid-20 teens,

in 2015, 2016, 2017, when the political and economic situation in Venezuela was so unstable and so insecure, people were suffering because of the implementation of sanctions and the just, and I document all in the book, also through NGOs and money, how the US ran, the support to destabilize, ran the operation to destabilize Venezuela. But it wouldn't have been surprising in that moment necessarily if the government collapsed. But by the time Trump recognized Guaido and failed again under renewed pressure, it to me was a success story of how a country

that was under such immense pressure from the most powerful empire in the history of mankind had survived because their political project had delivered many wins to the public, including increasing their quality of life, before sanctions wreaked havoc on the society, which they did. But over the years, because of U.S. sanctions, because of U.S. sanctions, particularly targeting Venezuela's oil sector, Venezuela was forced to, and this is, again, what I detail in the book, through my reporting and connections with other countries as well, Venezuela reached out, and built new relationships with countries like Russia, China, Iran, Turkey, rising powers that came in and said, we will give you an alternative to the United States because we are all also

under sanctions. We all understand that it's you today that are the target of this regime change operation, but it could be any one of us tomorrow. And so Iran broke an oil siege in Venezuela, delivered a necessary oil and part that helped revive their oil economy and has been in the process of rebuilding Venezuela's oil sector. Russia came in and built close military ties with the country, had joint military drills, shared advisors, sold them weapons, and gave them anti-aircraft weapons. And all of this was punctuated by the fact that Venezuela,

being home to the largest oil reserves in the world, joined those countries in trading their oil in currencies other than the dollar, including to India. They were selling their oil in yuan, in gold-backed loans, in swaps, in debt deals, in foreign current, in rubles. And so this, as anyone who studies the U.S. oil, the history of the U.S. attempts to control the oil economy and market of the planet will see was a major threat to the petro dollar, the foundation really of the U.S. empire today. And so the U.S. could not have that. That would be the end of U.S. Empire. When I wrote the book, I was a bit more confident that this vision of a new world and a multipolar order that would defend Venezuela was on a strong upswing. Since then, it's experienced

major setbacks, including with the situation in Syria, which is very similar to Venezuela, where for years there was an overt war of aggression, like waged against the country through CIA and foreign-backed jihadist groups that weakened the state, plunged into chaos, devastated its economy through sanctions. And yet when the Assad government fell last year, suddenly it wasn't at the worst time

or the most, the time that it was most threatened militarily or economically. It just suddenly happened overnight. Assad had fallen. And so I think what this tells me, and the lessons that I take from both of these scenarios, is that the long-term U.S. policy of breaking down these countries and sanctioning their societies so that everyone is suffering, the longer that goes on, eventually regime change and even if it's not as overt or or as clear-cut in the case of Venezuela that the regime has actually fallen, it does eventually make it so that you can dislodge the actors that you don't want around anymore. I mean, this wouldn't have been possible in Venezuela if the country hadn't been beaten down so much.

Where do you think Delsey will be in a year or so in her relations to the United States? resisting or acquiescing? I think we have to see whether Delcee will be in power a year from now, just because constitutionally, from what I gather, Venezuela, has to have elections within the next four months because of the nature of how Maduro was removed from office. And so I assume that she would be a candidate, the candidate that ran representing Chivismo.

I don't know really if there's a viable opposition candidate, not sure that Maria Karina Machado is viable. I don't think the United States wants Maria Karina Machado to go back and mess things up for them because they don't have any faith in her. So and there is definitely now going to be just questions about within Chavismo if there are people that want to rise and show their face and seize the moment. But I suggest that within the government, within the party side, things will remain pretty stable, at least from our perspective in the United States.

That Delsey will be there representing Chafismo and really anything's possible. It's hard to make predictions at this point because I would have not guessed that the U.S. would have gone in the way they did. Can Marco Rubio run the government of Venezuela? No. I mean, he's not qualified to. This is all about, this is all about personal vendetta for him. You hear him now boasting that Cuba's next on the list. I mean, he's just someone who comes from a family, a group in Florida, where they're very connected to the region through their family and through their blood and their own experiences. And he has a personal vendetta against all of these countries in the region and is proud that he gets to pretend like he's acting as governor. But in reality, I don't think that he is a accomplishing much other than getting his boss, Paul Singer, paid. Well, Anya, thank you very much, my dear friend.

Thanks, Judge. An excellent, excellent most informative interview and one deeply and profoundly appreciated by a huge audience. Your husband would be jealous of the number of people watching his wife, now. Uh-oh. Well, thank you, everyone. Thanks to the viewers, and thanks to the Judge Knapp team. It's always fun to talk to you guys.

Thank you, Anya. All the best to you, and God bless your new baby, and we'll see you again soon. Talk to you soon. Bye-bye. Coming up tomorrow, Tuesday, at 10 in the morning, Ambassador Freeman, is usually on at 8, but he'll be on at 10 tomorrow. at one in the afternoon, Mr. Anya Parenthold, otherwise known as Max Blumenthal, at two in the afternoon, Matt Ho, at three in the afternoon, Colonel Karen Kutkowski. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.

Thank you.