Maduro Attorney Says Ex-DOJ Lawyer Unauthorized to Join Defense

A lawyer representing Nicolas Maduro has moved to strike a former top Justice Department lawyer during the Reagan administration, Bruce Fein, from serving on the ousted Venezuelan president’s criminal defense team.

The court filing by Washington lawyer Barry Pollack came two days after Fein joined the case, and three days after Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, pleaded not guilty to narco-terrorism and weapons charges during a brief appearance before a federal judge in Manhattan.

Bruce Fein in 2009.

Photographer: Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images

“Neither undersigned counsel, nor anyone acting on his behalf, has authorized Mr. Fein to appear on behalf of Mr. Maduro,” Pollack wrote to the judge late Thursday. “Mr. Maduro has not retained Mr. Fein nor authorized him to hold himself out as Mr. Maduro’s counsel.”

Fein didn’t immediately respond outside regular business hours to a request for comment.

Fein served as associate deputy attorney general and general counsel to the Federal Communications Commission under President Ronald Reagan, and has testified as an expert before Congress more than 200 times.

He also represented Lon Snowden, the father of NSA contractor Edward Snowden, who revealed a US government surveillance program involving the collection of the phone records of millions of Americans, and served as a senior policy adviser to Ron Paul’s 2012 presidential campaign.

--With assistance from Robert Burnson and Chris Dolmetsch.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Peter Blumberg in San Francisco at pblumberg1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Misyrlena Egkolfopoulou at megkolfopoul@bloomberg.net

Kartikay Mehrotra, Peter Blumberg

© 2026 Bloomberg L.P. All rights reserved. Used with permission.