Trump ousting of Maduro draws parallels to US raid in Panama – but there are some major contrasts

"The defendants, together and with others, engaged in a relentless campaign of cocaine trafficking throughout the time period charged in this superseding indictment, resulting in the distribution of thousands of tons of cocaine to the United States," federal prosecutors said in Maduro's indictment. Perhaps the most important distinction between the two cases is the fact that in Panama, the "Just Cause" operation that resulted in Noriega's arrest was carried out after the Panamanian general assembly had already formally declared war against the U.S., as Georgetown law professor Steve Vladeck noted in his Substack newsletter. In Noriega's case, the federal courts "refused to consider the legality of the invasion itself," Clark Neily, the senior vice president for legal studies at the CATO Institute, said in a post published on the site after Maduro's capture.