Episode 301- Venezuela: What the Law Says. With Anthony Colangelo

Power grabbed headlines, but the real story is law, limits, and what comes next. We sit down with Professor Anthony Colangelo of SMU to unpack the U.S. operation that seized Venezuela’s leader and to separate a clean legal argument from messy policy ambitions. From irregular rendition to universal jurisdiction, we trace why courts can claim authority even after a cross‑border capture and how treaty obligations make narcoterrorism a shared international concern.

We dive into the hard edge of immunity doctrine. Status‑based immunity protects a sitting head of state; conduct‑based immunity can persist after office, but not for acts condemned by international law. That distinction matters when a leader’s actions create direct effects across borders. We also probe the collective self‑defense rationale under the UN Charter and why strict proportionality can fail as a deterrent against rational, high‑risk actors. The takeaway: legality can be clear while prudence is not.

Then we confront the policy frontier: talk of running a country, steering succession, or taking oil turns a lawful seizure into a broader question of occupation and constitutional checks at home. What obligations follow a regime change? How do we minimize civilian harm, stabilize services, and hand control back quickly? Could trials in absentia provide accountability without escalating conflict? Throughout, we push past media echo chambers to focus on facts, precedent, and measurable limits on executive power.

If you’re tired of spin and looking for a rigorous, good‑faith analysis that respects both international law and constitutional guardrails, this one’s for you. Listen, share with a curious friend, and tell us: legal win, policy risk, or both? If our work adds clarity, subscribe and leave a review to help others find the show.

Transcript

Season Seven And Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to season seven of the Common Bridge, hosted by Richard Helpie, a leading analyst, philanthropist, and entrepreneur. Now expanded with healthcare, education, finance, science, and world affairs bridges, the podcast, now in its seventh season, with an audience of over 7 million worldwide, explores issues in a fiercely nonpartisan way. Find us at the Common Bridge at Substack.com, YouTube, and wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

SPEAKER_00 0:32

Hello, welcome to the Common Bridge. I am your host, Rich Helpie. It is 2026, and we have the honor and the privilege to begin this new year with a returning guest, the very popular professor from Southern Methodist University's Law School, Professor Anthony Calangelo. Professor, it's good to see you. How have you been? I've been pretty well.

SPEAKER_02 0:57

You know, um classes are starting up soon. I'm excited about that. Um, I feel like I've got some nice research underway. And uh yeah, overall.

Setting The Media Skepticism Context

The Venezuela Operation Explained

Is The Cross‑Border Capture Legal

SPEAKER_00 1:06

Well, there's a few researchers as good as you. And, you know, look, it's a very important time because right now we're in a media environment where people just don't believe the other side. And I frankly, I'm in that camp. When I pick up the legacy media, be it online, be it the former print newspapers, be it the legacy networks, be it the cable channels, I kind of know what filter I'm gonna get and how they're gonna try to propagandize us. So today we're gonna talk about the recent assault and capture. Is it pertains to Venezuela? Is it legal? Is it good policy? Maybe we'll get in on that. And frankly, there's a lot to be concerned about here. I I watched the presser and the president and the secretaries and the head of the joint chiefs. You know, they said, look, we had a successful mission into Venezuela. We took capture the president and the first lady of Venezuela. Although people are saying, well, that's not really the president, that's really a dictator. Maybe that's a topic for another day. But also the president said, hey, if you think you're going to fill that gap, we've got a second wave ready to go. And then went on to say that we, the administration, are going to be running the country and somehow vectored over into opening restaurants in Washington, D.C. because of military boots on the ground in Washington, D.C. So a lot to unpack there and a lot to unravel. But look, when I go to news sources that celebrated the Russian hoax, that misreported about the law fair, that turned people out into city parks on Saturday afternoons for performative nonsense, who never investigated where all the BLM money went. It's like I'm not going there as a place to get my news or my information. But let's see if we can talk a little bit about this. Maybe the basic question is what happened and is it legal what the administration did? It is, you're right. It's unfortunate.

SPEAKER_02 3:13

It's unfortunate because you know the Republicans have a president I personally have no love for, but in this particular situation, acted completely legally. There is no question in my mind. I mean, under any body of law, whether it's international or national. I mean, the fact of the matter is he utilized the international law doctrine of irregular rendition, which essentially allows cross-border kidnapping, where a criminal perpetrates criminal activity that has effects within your territory. This is, you know, Supreme Court precedent here, you know, which combined a case called Adries versus Macain, where the court actually allowed, you know, U.S. operatives to go outside the treaty structure, outside the you know, the extradition treaty we had with Mexico. Um, so this is permissible. And there's Supreme Court precedent. You know, there's also an old, old Latin doctrine called Malicaptus Benedetentis. The bad capture does not deprive a court of good detention or jurisdiction. You know, there's crime at issue, narco-terrorism. You know, there's the narcoterrorism convention, you know, it's jurisdictional provisions in Article 4. Basically, they create what I would call a form of treaty-based universal jurisdiction such that if you have custody over the accused, you have the authority to prosecute.

Eichmann, Universal Jurisdiction, Precedent

SPEAKER_00 4:33

So Maduro was captured and he can't claim immunity. And also in the op-ed that you've authored, that we will be posting as a guest column on the Common Bridge, you talk about the prosecution of Adolf Eichmann, who is head, of course, of the Nazi concentration camps at Auschwitz. He was prosecuted for crimes against the state of Israel, even though Israel didn't exist when he committed his crime. And that was, I thought, a fascinating part of history and a part of your legal research.

SPEAKER_02 5:08

I totally agree. Um, you know, these news sources are so unreliable. I tried to get a real conservative take. Um and like it was all about like, you know, Joe Biden making a con. Your president did something good, guys. Just acknowledge it. You don't have to throw petty insults. Like, and this is what's dominating your news outlets now. Can we move on and actually get to the real issue? Which is, you know, your president took out of power a dictator. I would say a dictator, probably. Um, but it doesn't matter, actually. I mean, if he's a head of state, he's the head of state. The question is if he recognized as a head of state. We can address that in a second when we talk to the immunity issue. But you know, sometimes, you know, I I understand your frustration. I have it too. Um, this is very serious stuff. And the way international law works is it's it's based on the practice of states. And as I mentioned in my column, um this is a massive data point, massive, massive data point for how international law evolves. It is an empirical phenomenon. Um, and here you have a massive data point. And you know, I, you know, it's like, can't you just accept it as such?

SPEAKER_00 6:22

I don't know if it's good policy, all right, because I'm not versed in the law or in international relationships. And I know it took a lot of people to begin this process by knocking out drug boats. And of course, there was a knee-jerk reaction that you know, these were fishermen. And I actually asked a lot of fishermen how much fentanyl and cocaine do you normally take on a nighttime fishing run? And so far, the answer is none. Apparently, it's just a thing for the Caribbean. But also, you know, during the administration between the two Trump administrations, that there was a bounty, a reward leading to the arrest andor conviction of Nicolas Madura.$25 million. It was done at the tail end of the Biden administration just before Trump was inaugurated. It bumped it up from the$15 million that Trump had set in 2020. So I said, okay, there's$25 million for information leading to the arrest and conviction. Well, who was going to do the arresting and who was going to do the convicting? I don't understand that at all. What's what's the substance behind that?

Collective Self‑Defense And Deterrence

From Boats To Bounties To Prosecution

SPEAKER_02 7:36

The way I conceive of um, you know, this situation as being almost emblematic of um, you know, situations that have popped up really since the end of the Cold War. We have these individuals who represent a threat to the stability of the international legal system, some of whom are heads of state, some of whom are terrorists and not heads of state, or pirates, or you know, but they're you know heads of their own little states of Al-Qaeda and you know ISIS and the question is just how do we and this I think just is basic uh you know first year of criminal law, essentially. Um, how do we hold them accountable? How do we deter this type of behavior? And even how do we rehabilitate? Maybe, maybe even them, who knows? But at the very least, the victims of these crimes, these awful crimes, right? Crimes against humanity. So it's not, you know, and and I think the um yes, Article 24 UN Charter says no violation of other state's territorial sovereignty. But Article 51 says you can do it in an act of collective self-defense. Now, what does collective self-defense mean? It means that we are collectively defending humanity, and we all have a maintenance, you know, in this rule. So when Vladimir Putin invades you know, Ukraine, or, you know, you've got a narco-terrorist dictator in charge, you know, spreading drugs throughout, you know, the continent, like we all have an interest in that. And not only states, even I would say, that are directly affected. So there's actually like two violations. One is the violation, let's say, take narcoterrorism. You know, one is the violation to the particular state in which the drugs are shipped, but there's also a, you know, a violation to the rule against narcoterrorism. And that rule, every state has an interest in maintaining. And the same would go for, you know, uh Putin invading Ukraine. Yeah, Ukraine has a claim, right? You violated our rights, but that's why I think it's perfectly legal for us to help out Ukraine. We have an interest in the maintenance of the rule that says you can't invade another country. When people say to me, well, things have to be proportionate, like, you know, we our response has to be proportionate. I think that's absolutely wrong. You know, these people are not idiots. They're doing their cost-benefit analysis, and they're saying if we do X, then the proportionate response is Y, we'll do X. But meaning Y and Z to dissuade them, to deter them. And I think, you know, looking back and starting 20, 30 years, however, how we handle these individuals or groups of individuals, really, I think you can kind of get very technical. You know, did we bring them and give them a trial? What were the criminal charges? Were they? I mean, like this is you know, he's in the southern district of New York, he's gonna get all the constitutional protections there are, acted in conformity with international law. The executive absolutely has power to do this. I mean, the executive is essentially the head prosecutor of the United States for criminal activity.

SPEAKER_00 10:28

I hope they put him in a more secure place than they put Jeffrey Epstein. Um, you know, that that was also in federal custody at his demise. But also, the president went on to make really grandiose statements about, well, we're taking the oil, we're gonna put our companies in there, and we're gonna run this. And I have to admit to say, look, what boundaries do we put on saying, like, let's take aim at Mexico, which he kind of implied that, you know, Mexico, you might be next. And this is not a good way to win the hearts and minds, it seems. And I know people would make the parallel, well, uh, you know, Obama ordered the assassination of Osama bin Laden, but Osama bin Laden was not head of a state recognized and was widely associated with a criminalist enterprise. But also, you know, of uh the Obama administration, they bombed Libya with the express purpose of taking out Qaddafi. As Hillary Clinton said, we came, we saw he died. But we didn't take out, except for Libya, we didn't take out their heads of state.

Proportionality, Trials, And Due Process

SPEAKER_02 11:43

Yeah, I mean, like, you know, look, Ronald Reagan bombed Libya, killed hundreds of innocent civilians, children. Clinton stopped them in genocide, probably. I mean, there was at least 10,000 deaths in the former Yugoslavia before he put Wesley Clark in charge of NATO, a multilateral force using smart weaponry, so that the degree of civilian death and suffering was minimal compared to what was coming. That the invest you know, the independent prosecutor for the ICTY, International Court of Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, decided Carla Del Ponte, she decided I'm not even gonna pursue an investigation into this. Now, that may have been partly political, but the fact of the matter is is that like I read all those, you know, reports, and yeah, there was some collateral damage, but I mean there were lawyers on the front lines making those decisions. I mean, aristocratics are interesting, right? Obama and Syria. I think the question is, you know, just and even to get back to the Eichmann situation, you know, going and grabbing Eichmann and bringing him to Israel for trial, you know, it's just like how much of the rule of law are we going to follow with the least amount of collateral damage in the form of, you know, loss of human life and suffering? And I think you can actually do a pretty very technical but not super complicated almost spectrum along which there's full-scale military intervention from precision bombing to going and taking the person and bringing them back to stand trial. And I would even say, and I think one option that ought to be really, really considered is trying people in their absence. I see in this day and age no reason why we should not try people in absentia. Other countries do it. It's a question of notice that they don't know. Well, a lot, again, against these particular types of criminals, it's very clearly spelled out in multilateral treaties that are ratified by usually somewhere around 180, 190 to 200, you know, countries in the world. And that practice in and of itself generates custom. You know, you can't say, Oh, I didn't know torture was illegal, right? Have their lawyers go to the courtroom. You can sit in your office in your mansion, and you know, your lawyers can defend you and or they can sit next to you. We'll do a Zoom trial, ship the evidence, put it right before the court, you know, and that I think, you know, you should talk about like being as neutrally legal and objective as as possible, and sending also out a message, a signal, you know, this type of behavior will no longer be tolerated if we have to trap you in your own country with an international arrest warrant and interpoles waiting at every airport.

SPEAKER_00 14:10

We'll do it. The difference here, though, your explanation of what international law is, you're very learned on this, and I accept that all right, that going in and apprehending Maduro, and he did not have any claim to immunity was legal. But where do the bounds of legality end? Because now we are saying, well, we're gonna occupy the country, we're going to have a say in who steps into that role, that we are going to take over their oil assets. And this seems like it's going way beyond we've stopped a narco-terrorist after we took out their ships. And I don't know if you justify taking out the oil tankers as a means of denying them financing, but some point there has to be a boundary. And then further, if this was generated from the executive branch, our risk of one person becoming the president and saying, I'm going to deploy our military without boundaries. Now, in this instant case, I'd also point out that the Venezuelans seemed to really like the idea that the U.S. military came in, as evidenced by there was less resistance than the Grenada military put up when we went into Grenada decades ago and the celebrations that we've seen around the world from Venezuelans, particularly here in Florida. So the question is it potentially was it a popular good policy? But where are the boundaries of legality and the balance of powers within our constitution?

SPEAKER_02 15:52

Well, yeah, I mean, I think, you know, as far as that goes, or the constitution vests the executive with the power to enforce the law. Let's say historical gloss on that power. And again, this is an article that I co-authored with my constitutional law professor when I was in law school on the unitary executive. And I covered the Truman administration through the George W. Bush administration at the time of the Iraq war. And it's very clear that executives on both sides have been arrogating power, you know. The constitution gives it to them, but they've been pushing it, and that creates a precedent, you know, and that creates a precedent. In my view, at least, I think this, you know, I think this was um legal. I mean, this is certainly compared with, you know, an assassination. Not to say that the assassination was wrong. I mean, I think, you know, probably given who Osama bin Laden was and what potentially could have happened had we taken him into custody and held him to for you know to stand trial, and all the people out there willing to blow themselves up probably to get him out. I think the assassination was probably the right move.

Boundaries: Oil, Occupation, And Power

SPEAKER_00 16:55

I did speak with the first and the second person in the room, Bin Laden, and uh not on the air, but I I can tell you this that you know they said it was a capture or kill mission, and they gave him like less than a second to surrender, and then they shot him. So it was never gonna be a capture. Well, look, around the world. I was gonna just talk briefly about the immunities and the occupation. Yes, please talk about the immunity, and then I want to wrap up with a little teaser about Iran, and then we'll we can bring this to a close, but far away.

Immunities Explained And Their Limits

SPEAKER_02 17:23

So I'll conclude by why I think this is important in terms of the trajectory of international law, which is sort of putting the boundaries, right? Um so just immunities, real quick. Two types. One is status-based. So that would be his immunity as head of state now. He's no longer head of state, he's not there anymore. I think um that takes care of that. I also think that you know there's questions as to the legitimacy of his actual position. And these immunities, in my view, are on their last legs anyway. Um and that only, you know, it only lasts as long as he is in charge, which he's not. Um, you know, the other type of immunity would last after he leaves office. It's called conduct-based immunity, and it only covers quote unquote official governmental acts or functions. Now the narco-terrorism treaty of 1998 uh or 1988, sorry, I think, prohibits this activity. So it does not qualify as a uh official governmental front function, right? Governments are not officially narco-terrorists under international law. Um, and I I think like we're also at the point where there's these immunities have been challenged so much over the last 20 years that they're really almost extinct, in my view. And, you know, just quickly in terms of occupation, I think that's an exceedingly difficult question. Probably one we won't have time to talk about today. Obviously, you know, the Bush administration could have done a much better job in Iraq. My Iraqi friend tells me they wish they did. They did. You know, he uh I was at Columbia and he he was married to a Kurdish woman. Like, I wish the United States just did more. I mean, we have an obligation. If we're gonna go in and remove somebody from power, we have an obligation to create a stable environment for that country, probably handing over control as soon as possible, practically possible. I guess sort of in terms of um when I also often hear people push back against any sort of like intervention in another country by saying, well, it's all about the oil, or it's all about, you know, the whatever. That may be partly true, but it still doesn't detract, I suppose, in my view at least, from the fact that you're taking out of power a genocidal dictator. So I I listened very carefully to the you know address that George W. Bush gave to the nation after 9 11. And at the end, I mean it came at the end, um, but was we are gonna remove a genocidal dictator. And if the standard for doing so is that part of your motivation, or even your whole motivation, is based on a strategic national interest. And if you're gonna intervene one place, you have to intervene everywhere, then no one's gonna ever Do anything. I mean, it's an impossible standard to meet. And then you just have these, you know, these strong men who are just killing their own people. And yeah, I I guess, you know, sort of when I say like we have to look at actually what happened. Yes, you know, there are political motivations, but like, you know, what what actually did this person do? And if they actually, you know, conducted this operation in conformity with the rule of law, they should be applauded. Because that for international, I was just tied into the sort of grander trajectory of international law. That is a data point that empirically we can look at and say, aha, good. We'll base our future actions on that and um, you know, move forward where motives that may not, that maybe let's say more pure prevail. Because what it does is it, I think, creates a precedent and frees states up that otherwise would not act to act. I could be wrong. That's my suspicion. My suspicion is that we have a collection of you know sovereign states that are, you know, in a system, they're trying to achieve stability. That's what the United Nations did. It did it through Article 2.4, you know, said don't interfere with other countries' sovereignty. And the question we really have to ask ourselves right now is when you have you know gross human rights violations going inside going on inside a state, is it okay to disrupt that peace and stability? Are we going to sacrifice fundamental human rights in order to keep the peace? And my position is um we can't tolerate that. We can't tolerate it. The system will cannibalize itself from the inside out.

Occupation Duties And Realpolitik

SPEAKER_00 21:35

I appreciate you bringing this to our audience because I remember the first time we had you on, and I was uh greatly relieved to know that many of these matters of international law had been discussed, codified, settled, and people played within those boundaries. It was not a crisis that we didn't know what was going to happen next. And as you were explaining that part, I thought, well, it's too bad that we don't have a press that brings in someone from the other side of the aisle that says, look, we're really happy Maduro's gone. We'll be meeting with the president this afternoon, and we're gonna be talking about next steps because we don't want the next steps to be beyond the boundaries. But instead, it was just so predictable. Like, okay, they're gonna bring out the same sorry losers that are going to make the same sorry complaints to the same sorry audience that is bought into this hook, line, and sinker versus stepping back and saying what's really going on. And as I said at the top of the show, and I'll wrap up with it, that we have to be careful that we use the incredible power of the United States within the boundaries of our Constitution and international law. And the president who serves at the pleasure of the people needs to stay within those boundaries. And I am satisfied that on the taking out of the boats and the arrest of Maduro, great. And now the question is what's next? And when you tell me you're running a country, taking their oil. Oh, by the way, restaurants are opening in Washington, and that's all linked in there somehow. I think it's a really good time for us to be vigilant. And I would encourage people to come to real sources like you, Professor Calangelo, and to many of the good writers at Substack and other independent news organizations.

SPEAKER_02 23:36

It's it's frankly, it's childish, immature, counterproductive, distracting sound bites. It's taunting. It creates a you know festering, corrosive political environment in which real progress, if it is made, can't be appreciated because everybody's gotta throw their insult, you know, across the aisle. And it's sad because these are, you know, opportunities where, as I said, you know, could have a really significant ripple effect going forward. But if they're gonna be plagued by taunts and, you know, tweets and you know, it's just like very it's uh distracting for any audience, right? Their you know, personalities come into play and they don't need to. We don't need to.

SPEAKER_00 24:17

The last State of the Union address, the president said, I'm not going to appeal to the Democrats because there's nothing I can say or do that's gonna make them happy, or words to that effect. And that is very dangerous about not reaching out to everybody. Just prior to Donald Trump being elected again to office, we had supposedly a president that was gonna unify us and instead said his mission was wiping out the Trump movement known as MAGA. That's not unification when you demonize people like that. And the and the sad part is there are people now so bought in that they can't get past their own hate and their own brainwashing to step back and look. It's not saying they need to become a supporter of one side or the other, but at least recognize that there is middle ground. Professor Glengel, you've been very generous with your time. I'll give you the final comment and then wrap up.

Media Polarization And Civic Restraint

SPEAKER_02 25:16

I think I would just say um throughout my career I've had mentors, you know, very conservative and very liberal. And the ones that were the best. My judge. I clerked for in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, Judge Winter was a Reagan nominee. And my constitutional law professor in law school, my international law professor in law school, some of the people that I worked with at Columbia and Harvard and Yale, they were curious. This is what I tell my children, actually. The sign of true intelligence is curiosity, it's not certainty. You know, I mean the brain is like any other muscle. You know, when you're curious and you're open to different perspectives, your sort of worldview expands in ways that can synthesize, you know, other people's ideas and perspectives and hopefully reach a common ground. If you've automatically decided without, you know, as you say, hearing the other side, your mind shuts down. You know, I mean, you know, and like your ideas don't grow. And, you know, then simple little things that could be opportunities for grand compromise don't even get started. Conversation never even begins, which is, as I said, it's just unfortunate.

SPEAKER_00 26:21

I don't think truer words have ever been spoken. And that is our mission on the common bridge to get people to talk, to understand it's not this polarized situation that we're being presented with by the two established political parties and by the legacy press. I encourage everybody to reach out to those that they may not agree with with an open mind and a and a kind heart. And with our guest today, Professor Anthony Colangelo, great to have you back on the Common Bridge, sir. This is your host, Rich Helpe, signing off on the Common Bridge.

SPEAKER_01 26:53

Thank you for joining us on the Common Bridge, where we continue to see clarity across divided lines. Subscribe and support the Common Bridge on Substack, YouTube, and wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. Until next time, we invite you to stay informed, stay engaged, and help build a bridge of common understanding.