Trump Aides Look for Charges to Bring Against Cuban Officials

President Trump is publicly predicting Cuba's government will soon topple, and his administration is quietly testing how far it can push that idea in US courts. A person familiar with internal talks tells NBC News that officials have begun a multiagency review of whether federal prosecutors could bring criminal cases against senior Cuban officials or Communist Party members, possibly on drug- or violence-related charges. The effort mirrors the US indictment of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro earlier this year and could be used as a justification for fresh sanctions on top of the decades-old embargo.

Cuban officials have not said anything about the possibilities. Trump has cast Cuba as next in line for major change, telling CNN on Friday, "Cuba is gonna fall pretty soon" and floating Secretary of State Marco Rubio—long a hard-liner on its government—as his point man. Cuban American lawmakers have separately pressed for an indictment of former Cuban President Raúl Castro over the 1996 downing of civilian relief flights that killed four pilots. Any US move would be complicated by the open-ended lease for the Guantanamo Bay naval base, which Cuba opposes but cannot unilaterally terminate. Trump said Thursday at the White House he wants to focus on the fight with Iran first, per the Washington Post. "I just want to wait a couple of weeks," he said.