Hello everyone and welcome to the illegal news. I'm Sarah Longwell, publisher of The Bullwork, and it is Tuesday, January 13th. And today I am joined by Asha Rangappa, a lecturer at Yale Law School and co-hosts of the It's Complicated Legal Podcast. It is complicated. Asha, I'm so pumped you're here. Thanks for coming on. I'm pumped to be here.

Big fan, longtime fan. First time're here. Thanks for coming on. I'm pumped to be here. Big fan, long time fan.

First time for us to get to sit down and chat.

Yeah.

So, and unfortunately for you, your inaugural show, there is just no shortage of illegal news in 2026 so far.

And it's all illegal.

It's all illegal.

That's why we named the George and I used to joke.

It's like part of this running joke where we were just like, well, we're here to discuss the legal news, but it feels like we're here to discuss the illegal news.

So I'm excited to dive in today's topics with you. We're going to talk about Venezuela, Jack Smith's congressional testimony, because that kind of flew under the radar,

just got buried in the holidays, and I still think it's important.

The ICE shooting in Minnesota and a bunch of other illegal news that kicked off the year.

So let's talk about Venezuela first, because I have a lot of questions on this front.

Okay, give me your questions.

All right. There's a few different topics I want to touch on, starting with the military operation

to arrest Nicholas Maduro and his wife.

There's been a lot of discussion in the news about whether the operation and arrest were legal

under international law and U.S. domestic law.

And as I understand it, Trump says the operation was legal

because it was necessary to execute valid arrest warrants for Maduro and his wife. I'm somewhat

less interested in discussing whether Venezuela action, like whether it was legal, because it

already happened. And it seems unlikely Trump is going to face any consequences if it was illegal.

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