Not even Maduro's own lawyer got the memo on his new torture charges; reporters did.

…(cont) Because this week, officials told reporters that Maduro and his wife are expected to face new charges. Not drug charges — torture, this time, tied to how Americans were treated in Venezuelan prisons. Three outlets have it the same way: the Examiner, CBS, Fox.

Here's my question, and I want to be fair about it. CBS asked Maduro's own attorney about it, and the attorney said he hasn't been given any notice. Not a letter. Not a call. Nothing. So the man's own lawyer is finding this out the way I am — by reading it.

Is that the normal order? I ask because of my E-ZPass, which is a lousy system most days, but it does one thing right: the toll happens, and then — slow, annoying, but eventually — the notice comes, in the mail, before the account shows a violation anybody outside my house would know about. It doesn't go to the newspaper first. I drove out there in that car of mine, the one that needs a fan belt, just to ask the woman at the counter whether a violation ever gets announced before the notice goes out. She said no. The notice goes first. She does this for a living, so I believe her.

So: which went out first here — the word to reporters, or the notice to the lawyer? As of Wednesday, by his own account, the lawyer still didn't have it. The reporters already did.

I want to look at the other side of this too, because it isn't the first time. In 2018, Venezuela's own Supreme Court — sitting in exile at that point — sentenced Maduro to eighteen years and three months on corruption charges. Did his own government accept that, or call the court illegitimate? They called it illegitimate. Is that the same shape as what's happening now, or something different? I don't know.

And in 2010, at a summit in Mexico, Chávez and the Colombian president nearly came to blows in front of the whole room — "be a man," "go to hell," the works, cameras running the entire time. Was there a formal notice before any of that got said? Not that the record shows. Is that the same order we're seeing now, or a different one? I'm asking.

Oh — before you go, one more thing, and I'm sorry, I should have led with it. The Fox story has the new charges landing in Manhattan federal court Thursday. Today. So: does anybody happen to know whether Maduro's own lawyer has been told which courtroom to be in today, or is he going to find that out the same way the rest of us do — by reading it?