00:00It wasn't necessary because this was not an invasion. We didn't occupy a country. This was an arrest operation. This was a law enforcement operation. He was arrested on the ground in Venezuela by FBI agents, read his rights, and removed from the country. I encourage everyone, I know it's Sunday, people are busy, but the indictments have now been unsealed. People should read this indictment. They should read this indictment. They should read what this man did for the last 15 years of his life against the United States, him and his wife. He was arrested.
00:27Obviously, this was not a friendly territory, so in order to arrest them, we had to ask the Department of War to become involved in this operation. The Department of War went in. They hit anything that was a threat to the agents that were going in to arrest them, and they hit anything that was a threat on the way out, and they hit anything that was a threat to them while they were on the ground, and that was a very limited and targeted operation.
00:49You can't congressionally notify something like this for two reasons. Number one, it will leak. It's as simple as that. And number two, it's an exigent circumstance. It's an emergent thing that you don't even know if you're going to be able to do it.
01:02We can't notify them we're going to do it on a Tuesday or on a Wednesday because at some points, we didn't know if we were going to be able to carry this out. We didn't know if all of the things that had to line up were going to line up at the same time in the right conditions.
01:13Well, I've explained once again. I'll do it one more time. What we are running is the direction that this is going to move moving forward, and that is we have leverage.
01:21This leverage we are using and we intend to use. We started using already. You can see where they are running out of storage capacity.
01:28In a few weeks, they're going to have to start pumping oil unless they make changes, and that leverage that we have with the armada of boats that are currently positioned
01:35allow us to seize any sanctioned boats coming into or out of Venezuela, loaded with oil or on its way in to pick up oil, and we can pick and choose which ones we go after.
01:46We have court orders for each one. That will continue to be in place until the people who have control over the levers of power in that country
01:53make changes that are not just in the interest of the people of Venezuela, but are in the interest of the United States and the things that we care about.
02:00Well, as I said, we retain all the options we had before this raid and this capture and this arrest was made.
02:06We continue. The quarantine is in place right now. If you are a sanctioned boat and you are headed towards Venezuela,
02:12you will be seized either on the way in or on the way out with a court order that we get from judges in the United States.
02:18We will continue to enforce our sanctions, and that is going to continue to happen until such times changes are made.
02:25I cannot overstate how crippling this is for their future. On the other hand, there's an alternative to that.
02:31And here's the alternative, and that is an oil industry that actually benefits the people, that actually goes to the benefit,
02:38not of people, of the people, not just two or three or five people who are stealing it,
02:42and certainly not to Iran or any of the other sanctioned entities that we're going after.
02:47Ultimately, this is not about securing the oil fields.
02:49This is about ensuring that no sanctioned oil can come in and out until they make changes to the governance of that entire industry.
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