President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice quietly removed references to a fictional drug cartel led by Nicolás Maduro from its newest indictment of the kidnapped Venezuelan president.

The New York Times reported Monday that the new indictment of Maduro and others on charges related to drug trafficking omitted a crucial element of the original charges: the criminal organization that Maduro supposedly ran, Cartel de los Soles.

The original indictment filed against Maduro in March 2020 in the Southern District of New York described the Cartel de los Soles as a “drug trafficking organization comprised of high-ranking officials” that operated between 1999 and 2020.

“Under the leadership of Maduro Moros and others, the Cartel de Los Soles sought not only to enrich its members and enhance their power, but also to ‘flood’ the United States with cocaine,” the indictment said.

But apparently, Cartel de los Soles isn’t a real organization at all. It’s a slang term invented by the Venezuelan media to describe corruption, according to the Times. The supposed cartel’s inclusion in the original indictment would be as if someone tried Trump for leading “Trumpworld” as a criminal organization.

The original indictment mentions the cartel 32 times, while the new one only mentions it twice, this time describing Cartel de los Soles as a “patronage system run by those at the top.”

The fabrication of Cartel de los Soles must be a relatively new revelation for the Trump administration. In November, the U.S. State Department designated Cartel de los Soles as a terrorist organization led by Maduro.

The new indictment adds to the original by including additional charges of “narco-terrorism,” conspiracy to import cocaine, and gun charges, as well as charges against Maduro’s wife for allegedly accepting bribes to broker trafficking meetings.

A woman was arrested live on camera in Grand Rapids, Michigan, while talking to a local newscast about protesting the U.S. government’s sudden takeover of Venezuela.

Jessica Plichta helped Grand Rapids Opponents of War organize the turnout Saturday, which inspired dozens of locals to march through snowy city streets. But in a bizarre turn of events, Plichta’s decision to exercise her First Amendment rights ended when local authorities handcuffed her on the sidewalk while she was live on air.

“We have to apply pressure at all points that we can, this is not just a foreign issue,” Plichta said before she was arrested. “It’s our tax dollars that are also being used to commit these war crimes.”

She was reportedly arrested for obstructing a roadway and failure to obey a lawful command from an officer, according to 13 ON YOUR SIDE.

What in the Gestapo is going on in Grand Rapids? Watch this activist get arrested *mid-interview* for speaking out against U.S. action in Venezuela.

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Plichta had visited Venezuela just three weeks before the Trump administration kidnapped the Latin American nation’s leader, Nicolás Maduro. While there, she attended an international summit, the People’s Assembly for Peace and Sovereignty of Our America, during which she said she saw Maduro “in person.”

“People loved him,” Plichta told the ABC News affiliate before her arrest. “Maduro was elected by the people. He is for the people, and the people want to see his return. Free Maduro.”

U.S. forces invaded Venezuela early Saturday, bombing its capital Caracas as nearly 200 American troops infiltrated the city to capture Maduro. Trump failed to notify Congress before the invasion but didn’t forget to tip off his friends at America’s biggest oil companies, which stand to gain the most from the America’s newfound control over Venezuela’s oil supply—the largest in the world.

The invasion followed months of escalating rhetoric between the White House and Venezuela’s leadership, which saw the Trump administration repeatedly pin U.S. fentanyl deaths on Venezuelan drug cartels despite a resounding lack of evidence.

The Trump administration is cutting off $10 billion in funding for social services like childcare and aid for poor families in five deep blue states. 

The New York Post reported Monday that the Department of Health and Human Services will freeze funding for California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, and New York. The freeze will affect $7.35 billion from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF, program, which gives cash assistance to very poor people. The administration is also blocking $2.4 billion in Child Care Development Funding and  another $869 million from the Social Services Block Grant for all five states, citing benefits going to immigrants. 

An official from the Office of Management and Budget later confirmed the news to Axios, though all states don’t appear to have yet been notified.

The move appears to be a reaction to Minnesota’s Somali day-care scandal, which the right has latched onto.  

Regardless of the justification, this is likely just another instance of Trump going out of his way to spite American citizens, many of whom voted for him, living in states that didn’t. 

President Trump’s recent imperialistic escalations and threats have neocons like Republican Senator Lindsey Graham practically........

© New Republic