Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is expected to make an initial appearance in Manhattan federal court on Monday, according to a Justice Department official.Maduro was captured in Caracas, Venezuela on Saturday morning by the United States’ armed forces following months of planning.While the operation was approved by US President Donald Trump four days ago, military and intelligence planners suggested he wait for better weather and less cloud cover.In the early hours of Saturday, the mission – which would be known as Operation Absolute Resolve – to capture Maduro started with Trump watching the livestream surrounded by his advisers at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida.The top U.S. general, General Dan Caine, told reporters that the operation involved more than 150 aircraft taking off from 20 bases around the Western Hemisphere, including F-35 and F-22 fighter jets, and B-1 bombers.Trump at a press conference on Saturday promised to put the country under American control for now, including by deploying U.S. forces if necessary.“We’re going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition,” Trump said.“We can’t take a chance that someone else takes over Venezuela who doesn’t have the interests of Venezuelans in mind.”It is unclear how Trump plans to oversee Venezuela.However, the US President said a U.S. occupation “won’t cost us a penny” because the U.S. would be reimbursed from the “money coming out of the ground,” referring to Venezuela’s oil reserves.Trump said U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio had been in touch with Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez — Maduro’s presumptive successor.“‘We’ll do whatever you need,'” Trump quoted Rodríguez as saying. “She really doesn’t have a choice,” he added.Trump was asked how the U.S. running Venezuela falls into his administration’s “America First” strategy.“Well, I think it is because we want to surround ourselves with good neighbors. We want to surround ourselves with stability. We want to surround ourselves with energy. We have tremendous energy in that country, it’s very important that we protect it,” he said.He also said “We want safety there. We want to be surrounded by countries that aren’t housing all of our enemies all over the world. That’s what was happening. And you don’t want to have that, but we’re going to be rebuilding and we’re not spending money. The oil companies are going to go in, they’re going to spend money there.” (Extracted from Reuters)The post Maduro expected to appear in court on Monday, official says appeared first on News Room Guyana.