In response to a round-the-clock sit-in the Venezuelan Embassy in Washington, President Trump’s special envoy Elliot Abrams said on Thursday the activists are “clearly breaking the law.”
The protesters say they were invited to stay by the government of President Nicholas Maduro, which the Trump administration is seeking to oust. The U.S. and about 50 nations view Maduro’s re-election last year as illegitimate. The United Nations and 100 other nations recognize the Maduro government.
“Everybody here is defending the rule of law,” said Code Pink’s Medea Benjamin.
Kevin Zeese, an attorney for the protesters, said he had spoken with State Department officials who told him the protesters would be arrested but did not say when.
Zeese said that any effort to evict or arrest the two dozen people living in the Embassy for the past two weeks would be a violation of the Vienna Convention guaranteeing the sovereignty of diplomatic offices
The confrontation on a quiet side street of the Georgetown neighborhood brings the issue of Venezuela into the capital and the 2020 presidential campaign.
