The Latest: Uncertainty and legal questions remain after US captures Maduro

A tense calm hangs over Venezuela after the U.S. military operation that deposed President Nicolás Maduro, who was brought to New York to face criminal charges.

President Donald Trump said the U.S. would “run” the South American country and tap its vast oil reserves to sell to other nations.

Maduro and his wife landed late Saturday afternoon at a small airport in New York. The couple face U.S. charges of participating in a narco-terrorism conspiracy.

The dramatic action capped an intensive Trump administration pressure campaign on Venezuela’s autocratic leader and months of secret planning, resulting in the most assertive American action to achieve regime change since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Legal experts raised questions about the lawfulness of the operation, which was done without congressional approval. Venezuela’s vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, meanwhile, demanded that the United States free Maduro and called him the country’s rightful leader as her nation’s high court named her interim president.

Here’s the latest:

Rubio says US will use control of Venezuela’s oil to influence policy

Secretary of State Marco Rubio appeared to back off Trump’s assertions that the U.S. was running Venezuela, insisting instead that Washington will use control of the South American country’s oil industry to force policy changes and, “We expect that it’s going to lead to results here.”

“We’re hopeful, hopeful, that it does positive results for the people for Venezuela,” Rubio told ABC’s “This Week.” “But, ultimately, most importantly, in the national interest of the United States.”

Asked about Trump suggesting that Rubio would be among the U.S. officials helping to run Venezuela, Rubio offered no details but said, “I’m obviously very intricately involved in the policy” going forward.

He said of Venezuela’s interim leader: “We don’t believe this regime in place is legitimate” because the country never held free and fair elections.

A tense calm prevails on mostly empty streets of Caracas

Venezuela’s capital Caracas was unusually quiet Sunday with few vehicles moving around. Convenience stores, gas stations and other businesses were mostly closed.

The presence of police and members of the military across the city was notable for its smaller size compared with an average day and even more so with the days when people protested against Maduro’s government in previous years.

Meanwhile, soldiers attempted to clear an area of an air base that had been on fire along with at least three passenger buses following Saturday’s U.S. attack.

After capture and removal, Venezuela’s Maduro is being held at notorious Brooklyn jail

The Brooklyn jail holding Nicolás Maduro is a facility so troubled that some judges have refused to send people there even as it has housed such famous inmates as music stars R. Kelly and Sean “Diddy” Combs.

Opened in the early 1990s, the Metropolitan Detention Center, or MDC Brooklyn, currently houses about 1,300 inmates.

It’s the routine landing spot for people awaiting trial in federal courts in Manhattan and Brooklyn, holding alleged gangsters and drug traffickers alongside some people accused of white collar crimes.

Maduro is not the first president of a country to be locked up there.

Juan Orlando Hernández, the former president of Honduras, was imprisoned at MDC Brooklyn while he was on trial for trafficking hundreds of tons of cocaine into the U.S. Hernández was pardoned and freed by President Donald Trump in December.

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