As the lead attorney for
Hugo Chávez's defense team, she helped secure Chávez's release from prison in 1994 after his
unsuccessful coup in 1992.
National Assembly in 2009 In 2000, Flores was elected as a deputy in the National Assembly. As a member of the
United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), Flores replaced her future husband Maduro as Speaker of the
Assembly in August 2006 when he was appointed
Minister of Foreign Affairs. She was the first woman to serve as the President of the National Assembly (2006–2011). On 10 January 2007, Flores swore Chávez into office following the
2006 presidential election. From 2012 until the election of Maduro, she served as the Attorney General of Venezuela. She said she would use her seat to defend the social rights of citizens and the achievements of the Bolivarian Revolution. In 2017, Flores was elected into the
Constituent Assembly of Venezuela. In January 2021, a federal indictment was unsealed charging Flores, Maduro, and their son with collaborating with
drug traffickers. According to
Tal Cual, 16 relatives of Flores were in office while she was in the National Assembly. Flores responded to the reporters who shared the nepotism allegations stating it was part of a black campaign, calling them "mercenaries of the pen". In a 2013 interview with
La Vanguardia, Flores defended the presence of her family members in government, stating, "My family got in based on their own merits... I am proud of them, and I will defend their work as many times as necessary."
Narcosobrinos incident on 10 November 2015 On 10 November 2015, two nephews of Cilia Flores, Efraín Antonio Campos Flores and Francisco Flores de Freitas, were arrested in
Port-au-Prince,
Haiti by local police while attempting to make a deal to transport 800 kilograms of
cocaine destined for
New York City and were turned over to the
US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) where they were flown directly to the United States. Campos stated on the DEA plane that he was the
step son of Ex-President Maduro and that he grew up in the Maduro household while being raised by Flores.
Sanctions in Brasília, Brazil, 29 May 2023 Flores has been
sanctioned by several countries and is banned from entering neighboring Colombia. The Colombian government maintains a list of people banned from entering Colombia or subject to expulsion; as of January 2019, the list had 200 people with a "close relationship and support for the Nicolás Maduro regime". Responding to the May
2018 Venezuelan presidential election, Canada sanctioned 14 Venezuelans, including Flores, stating that the "economic, political and humanitarian crisis in Venezuela has continued to worsen as it moves ever closer to full dictatorship". The government said the 2018 presidential election was "illegitimate and anti-democratic", On 27 March 2018, Panama sanctioned 55 public officials and 16 businesses that operate in Panama, related to the family of Flores. The sanctioned businesses have members of the Malpica-Flores family on their boards of directors. The
US Treasury Department seized a private jet and imposed sanctions on Maduro's inner circle in September 2018; Flores and top Maduro administration officials were sanctioned. Maduro responded to his wife's sanctions, saying: "You don't mess with Cilia. You don't mess with family. Don't be cowards! Her only crime [is] being my wife." The United States said the sanctions were a response to the "plundering" of Venezuela's resources. == Kidnapping and legal proceedings==