Ousted Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Celia Flores, pleaded not guilty Thursday to new accusations of torture brought against them by the United States following their arrest in a military operation in Caracas in January.
The couple appeared before a court in New York after prosecutors accused them last week of committing acts of torture that included waterboarding, rape, and beatings against detainees in Venezuela, including American citizens.
Maduro, who previously considered himself a “prisoner of war,” described the new accusations as “false allegations.”
Maduro and his wife already face charges of drug trafficking and firearms crimes in the United States. According to the indictment, they used torture with the aim of “intimidating, harassing and neutralizing their opponents, including through kidnapping.”
During his presidency, which extended from 2013 until the US military operation in early January 2026, human rights organizations accused Maduro of using repression to remain in power.
Maduro and Flores are currently being held in a Brooklyn prison. Their trial is scheduled to begin next June. They demanded that the charges against them be dropped under the pretext that they enjoy immunity in their capacity as president and first lady of a sovereign state.
Since Maduro's arrest, his deputy, Delcy Rodriguez, has been ruling Venezuela as acting president, under intense pressure from the administration of US President Donald Trump.
Democrats hammered hot iron at Republicans in states that had always been classified as red, trying to extract the largest possible number of votes for their candidates in the midterm elections for the US Congress on November 3, after money suddenly flowed into their campaigns.
The announced figures revealed that groups supporting the Democrats are now financially superior to their Republican counterparts, after long months in which supporters of President Donald Trump were lavishing donations on election campaigns in the hope of maintaining the current majority in the House of Representatives and the Senate. The main Democratic political action committee in the House of Representatives announced that it, along with its allied non-profit organization, had raised $514 million from the beginning of the election cycle until last September 30. This includes $230 million raised during the third quarter alone. On the other hand, the Congressional Leadership Fund, which is allied with Republican Speaker Mike Johnson, announced that it and his non-profit organization had raised $370 million as of October 14.
Millions of dollars
This Democratic advantage comes despite the fact that the Republican Committee outperformed its competitor, allied with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, in fundraising during the first 18 months of the session. But the picture changed when non-profit organizations on both sides were taken into account, which are not required by law to disclose their sources of funding.
This does not mean that Republicans are declining in terms of donations; The Congressional Leadership Fund announced that it collected about $94 million between last July and September, which is the largest amount it has collected in any summer quarter. Part of that amount came from two donations of $20 million each made by billionaire Elon Musk and major donor Timothy Mellon.
Fund President Chris Winkleman said: “We have collected more donations than ever before,” adding that the difficult circumstances require the party to be well funded to withstand the blows it will receive. He stressed that he was “frank” with donors about the scale of the challenge, and that this frankness did not harm fundraising.
Democrats need a net gain of only three seats to regain the majority in the House of Representatives, knowing that they have chances to win about 20 seats. In a sign of Republicans' defensive posture, major Republican political action committees stopped spending in at least three previously competitive races, effectively ceding them to Democrats.
A surprise financier
Lawyer and philanthropist Steve Bagsic (80 years old) has emerged as a financier of the Democrats' surprise campaign in four states that are considered traditional Republican strongholds: Florida, Kansas, Mississippi and South Carolina.
Bagsic and his children are spending no less than seven million dollars through a new group called “A New Deal for All,” which was founded in early October to broadcast advertisements in Kansas and South Carolina, and will soon expand to Mississippi and Florida, where it plans to spend the bulk of its money.
This is the largest amount that Bagsic has ever donated, after he gave $147,000 to the Senate Democratic Political Action Committee in 2024. He said that he preferred to manage the money himself instead of handing it over to external parties, explaining: “If I am going to invest this large amount, I want to make sure it is effective and achieves the desired goals.”
He indicated that he chose the name of the group in the hope that the Democrats would win up to 56 seats in the Senate and launch a historic movement comparable to the “New Deal” program in America.
One of his ads in South Carolina targets Republican Senator Darlene Graham, who was appointed to the position after the death of her brother, Senator Lindsey Graham, this summer.
Although Democrats at the national level have begun to shift more resources to red states, especially Kansas, their spending is still limited in Florida, one of the most expensive states in terms of campaign costs, as well as in South Carolina and Mississippi.
Bagsic has long political experience, as he held a seat in the Florida Legislature, and was the Democratic Party's nominee for governor in 1986. He also collected donations for the campaigns of former President Barack Obama.
In other battlefields, the “States Project” organization, which is concerned with electing Democrats to state legislatures, announced that it has raised more than $100 million in this cycle, exceeding the $70 million it collected in 2024. Thus, the organization is approaching the level of the Republican Leadership Committee for the States, which together with its political group raised more than $100 million in the 2024 cycle, noting that Republicans have historically paid greater attention to these elections.
The organization seeks to win a full majority in states such as Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, while preventing Republicans from obtaining an overwhelming majority in other states.
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Postal Service are investigating letters “containing suspicious material” sent to election offices and Congress. He urged recipients to treat these messages as “potentially dangerous.”
The Associated Press obtained a letter from the Senate affairs official revealing the investigation being conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the US Postal Inspection Service and the Capitol Police, today (Thursday).
The notice, sent to Senate offices, said law enforcement officials were working to intercept any additional messages, but "it is possible that some messages may still reach their destinations."
These letters come just three weeks before Election Day, and are reminiscent of a similar threat in 2023, when several election offices received envelopes containing the powerful opioid fentanyl.
In Congress, the situation appeared to be confined to the Senate, but the House of Representatives was following up on the matter, according to a person familiar with the matter who was not authorized to discuss the investigation publicly.
Postal packages containing powder led to the evacuation of election offices this week in at least two states: Louisiana and Oklahoma. An Ohio state official said the Postal Service intercepted a package containing white powder that was addressed to his office, and noted that similar letters had been sent to election officials in several states.
The National Association of State Trustees and the National Association of State Election Directors issued a joint statement condemning what they described as threats against election officials.
She said in her statement: “Those who administer our elections should never fear for their safety while performing their basic duties.”
