DOJ Indicts Former Cuban President as Trump Ratchets Up Pressure |
DOJ Indicts Former Cuban President as Trump Ratchets Up Pressure
The Trump administration is escalating its regime change campaign in Cuba.
The U.S. government indicted former Cuban President Raúl Castro in federal court Wednesday for his alleged role in shooting down planes belonging to Cuban exiles in 1996.
Castro, 94, and five others were charged in Miami with conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals, four counts of murder, and two counts of destruction of aircraft related to when the Cuban military shot down planes over the Florida Straits on a humanitarian mission to find refugees trying to escape Cuba, killing four people. Castro is accused of giving the order to fire.
The planes belonged to Brothers to the Rescue, a group founded by Cuban exiles that searched for Cubans fleeing the island in rafts. Three of the people killed were U.S. citizens, while one was a U.S. permanent resident.
“For nearly 30 years, the families of four murdered Americans have waited for justice,” acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a press conference in Miami Wednesday. “My message today is clear: The United States and President Trump does not and will not forget its citizens.”
The indictment appears to be part of the Trump administration’s growing pressure campaign to force regime change in the country.
“This isn’t a show indictment,” Blanche stressed when announcing the news. “There is a warrant for his arrest. We expect that he will show up here by his own will or by another way”.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has invoked the U.S.’s January capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro when discussing Cuba, raising the possibility of Castro meeting the same fate. At the time, Rubio said, “If I lived in Havana and I was in the government, I would be concerned, at least a little bit.”
For months, the U.S. has blocked oil shipments from arriving into Cuba, resulting in electricity blackouts across the country and protests in the capital, Havana. Earlier on Wednesday, Rubio posted a video message in Spanish addressed to the Cuban people.
“The reason you are forced to survive without electricity is not due to an oil blockade by America,” Rubio said, instead blaming the Cuban government for plundering “billions of dollars” and preventing electricity, food, and fuel from reaching the Cuban people.
Cuba’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs replied in his own post on X, saying, “The reason why the U.S. Secretary of State lies so repeatedly and unscrupulously when referring to Cuba and trying to justify the aggression to which he subjects the Cuban people is not ignorance or incompetence. He knows full well that there is no excuse for such a cruel and ruthless aggression.”
This story has been updated.
Trump Attacks Senate Parliamentarian in Crazed Demand for Voter ID Law
Donald Trump has decided the Senate parliamentarian is standing in his way.
The president has turned his aim against the Senate parliamentarian amid his broiling quarrel with the Republican Party.
Donald Trump publicly lashed out against Elizabeth MacDonough Wednesday, writing on Truth Social that the upper chamber’s nonpartisan adviser should be thrown out because she was appointed by a Democrat years ago, and because of her staunch opposition to including bits and pieces of the SAVE Act in budget reconciliation bills—a position she is required to take by virtue of her job.
“Over the years, she has been brutal to Republicans, but not so to the Dumocrats—So why has she not been replaced?” Trump wrote. “There are many fair people who would be qualified for that vital job.
“The Republicans play a very soft game compared to the Dumocrats. It is their single biggest disadvantage in politics. The Dumocrats cheat, lie, and steal, especially when it comes to Votes in Elections, but stick together, whereas the Republicans allow the Elizabeth MacDonoughs of the World to stay in power, and brutalize us,” Trump continued.
MacDonough became the first woman to serve as Senate parliamentarian in 2012, after she was appointed by then–Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat from Nevada. In his post, Trump incorrectly claimed that MacDonough was appointed by former President Barack Obama, although she was hired during his second term.
The Senate parliamentarian’s role is to advise lawmakers on both chambers’ rules and procedures, and to review spending packages for line items that the Senate cannot make good on. She is also required to oppose policy-oriented provisions in reconciliation bills, a regulation known as the “Byrd rule.”
Yet MacDonough earned the ire of the president over the weekend for doing exactly that, when she nixed the last line item in the Republicans’ budget reconciliation bill: a $1 billion allowance for security funding for Trump’s White House ballroom.
She ruled that the funding provision could not be included as it violated budget reconciliation rules in its current form, an outcome that surprised no one on either side of the aisle, reported Fox News.
Trump was so irate about MacDonough’s decision, however, that he reportedly phoned Senate Majority Leader John Thune to fire her. Thune was not responsive to the request.
“We’re going through a process that we go through every time we have a reconciliation bill and the people on both sides are mad at the parliamentarian,” Thune told NOTUS Tuesday, clarifying that he would not consider firing MacDonough. “That’s been true.”
Thune’s spokesperson Ryan Wrasse said in a social media post over the weekend that the party would continue to revise the language of the legislation until it earned MacDonough’s approval. “None of this is abnormal during a Byrd process,” Wrasse wrote Saturday.
Apparently unsatisfied with Thune’s response, Trump has brought his attacks against MacDonough into broad daylight, offering up her continued employment to the court of public opinion.
In the same lengthy Truth Social post, Trump urged Republicans to “kill the filibuster” (something that the party will likely never do) and pass the SAVE Act, the voter restriction bill that was shelved earlier this month.
“If we don’t pass at least one of these two provisions quickly, you will never see another Republican President again,” Trump wrote, going on to suggest that Democrats will henceforth be able to create two additional states out of Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. He also claimed that Democrats would pack the Supreme Court with as many as 21 justices and eliminate the filibuster anyway.
“Get smart and tough Republicans, or you’ll all be looking for a job much sooner than you thought possible!” Trump concluded.
For all his bellyaching, the cost of Trump’s White House ballroom project has vastly exceeded his initial projections. Last summer, Trump told the American public that the renovation would cost $200 million and be paid for entirely by private donations. In the months since, Trump has tacked on extra construction to the site and doubled its construction expenses to $400 million.
The price tag grew to $1 billion when Republicans offered to ramp up security at the site, offering taxpayer dollars to foot the bill in the wake of another assassination attempt on the president’s life last month.
Jan. 6........