Indictments Aren't Victory Laps - Trump celebrates Maduro's capture, but federal court reality looms [View all]

https://www.meidasplus.com/p/indictments-arent-victory-laps

Trump celebrates Maduro’s capture, but federal court reality looms, constitutional guardrails tighten, and Judge Hellerstein reminds presidents that indictments begin cases, not victories.
Michael Cohen and MeidasTouch Network
Jan 04, 2026

On Monday, when Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, are wheeled into a federal courtroom in the Southern District of New York, they will do the least cinematic thing imaginable: they will plead not guilty to every single count. No confession. No dramatic collapse. No instant justice montage for Fox News. Just the beginning of a very long, very complicated federal case; one that Trump and his chest-thumping administration appear to fundamentally misunderstand.

I know something about that courtroom. I know something about that judge. And I know something about what happens when prosecutors overestimate theatrics and underestimate the Constitution.

Maduro, improbably, could not have landed in a better courtroom if he spun the wheel himself.

The case is assigned to Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein, a senior U.S. District Judge appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1998. A serious jurist. A constitutional hawk. A man with zero patience for executive-branch arrogance masquerading as law enforcement. He’s also the same judge who, in July 2020, looked at what the Trump administration and Bill Barr did to me—remanding me to prison because I planned to publish Disloyal—and called it exactly what it was: retaliation.

Judge Hellerstein ruled that the government violated my First Amendment rights, imposed an unprecedented and unconstitutional gag order, and attempted to silence speech as a condition of release. He said, flatly, that in over two decades on the bench he had never seen conditions like that. Then he ordered my immediate release.

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