President Donald Trump's private comments to MS NOW's Joe Scarborough could blow up the prosecution of Venezuela's former president Nicolás Maduro.
The "Morning Joe" host revealed Tuesday morning that he'd spoken to the president the previous day, and he told viewers that Trump boasted that the U.S. was going to take over the South American nation's oil production.
"'Joe, the difference between Iraq and this is that [George W.] Bush didn't keep the oil – we're going to keep the oil,'" Scarborough said Trump told him, "and to underline his point, Trump said his comments were no longer on background and said, 'In 2016, I said we should have kept the oil, it caused a lot of controversy. Well, we should have kept the oil.'"
"The president said, 'and we're going to rebuild their broken-down oil facilities, and this time we're going to keep the oil,'" Scarborough added.
Those comments, along with similar statements Trump has publicly made, could strengthen Maduro's defense as he fights prosecution in New York on drug and weapons charges, according to MS NOW's legal analyst Lisa Rubin.
"Barry Pollack, who hadrepresented Julian Assange andnow represents Maduro,previewed that he is going tomake motions to dismiss on thebasis of not only head of stateimmunity, but about thelegality of the abduction inthe first place," Rubin said.
"And I thinkthat Mr. Pollack would havebeen very interested in theconversation you had with thepresident yesterday. Had thatconversation taken place beforethe court appearance, I expectthat comments like that wouldhave been addressed, and hewould have told the judge thiswas pretextual."
"This was amilitary operation all along," Rubin said, anticipating Maduro's defense. "It was always about the oilthat the president intends tokeep, and not about anindictment or a supersedingindictment of Nicolás Maduro,who has been under indictmentin the United States alreadyfor five-plus years."