An attorney for Nicolás Maduro insists Venezuela should be able to pay the legal fees for the ousted former leader.

The Treasury Department had denied the country a special license to circumvent sanctions in order to pay for Maduro’s lawyer.

Nicolás Maduro appeared in a Manhattan federal court Thursday as the US pushes forward with a broad drug-trafficking and narco-terrorism conspiracy case against the ousted Venezuelan leader that’s loaded with regional and geopolitical implications.

María Corina Machado is pitching Venezuela as a top U.S. oil partner after she said the Trump administration’s arrest of former dictator Nicolás Maduro opened up a “new era."