Eric Zuesse
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27 May 2026, by Eric Zuesse. (All of my recent articles can be seen here.)
The sources are presented below, in a sequence of 7 articles from various news-organizations, but first here will be the SUMMARY of the events that those articles describe:
Trump’s 3 January 2026 take-over of Venezuela from rule by Marxists, who were (like all Marxists) economic incompetents (since Marx’s philosophy requires that), was an imperialist-fascist operation, masterminded by Trump’s Secretary of State Marco Rubio, working with a key operative of the U.S. empire’s controlling aristocracy (U.S.-and-allied billionaires), Mauricio Claver-Carone, who actually planned the operation in conjunction with his subordinate in some details (and boss in other details), Jessica Bedoya. (They are partners.) Whereas the Democratic Party’s billionaires had tried to get Juan Guaido and then Maria Machado to become Venezuela’s President, the Republican Party’s billionaires (via this operation headed by Claver-Carone) have instead chosen Delcy Rodriguez to be that (the U.S. regime’s stooge-leader of the U.S. empire’s new colony). The following seven articles provide a history of the U.S. regime’s take-over of Venezuela (and the links provide amplification on the historical details). (NOTE: Around 40% of the links in these articles fail; so, I have corrected those links here, in order to enable my readers to access much more easily their cited sources.)
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#1:
Thu 22 Jan 2026 07.55 EST, Guardian, Aram Roston,
Before the US military snatched Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, earlier this month, Delcy Rodríguez and her powerful brother pledged to cooperate with the Trump administration once the strongman was gone, four sources involved at high levels with the discussions told the Guardian.
Rodríguez, who was sworn in on 5 January as acting president to replace Maduro, and her brother Jorge, the head of the national assembly, secretly assured US and Qatari officials through intermediaries ahead of time that they would welcome Maduro’s departure, according to the sources.
The communications between US officials from Delcy Rodríguez, who was then Maduro’s vice-president, began in the fall and continued after Trump and Maduro spoke in a crucial phone call in late November, the Guardian has learned, in which Trump insisted that Maduro leave Venezuela. Maduro rejected the demand.
By December, one American who was involved told the Guardian that Delcy Rodríguez told the US government she was ready: “Delcy was communicating ‘Maduro needs to go.’
“She said, ‘I’ll work with whatever is the aftermath,’” another person familiar with the messages said.
The sources say Marco Rubio, Trump’s secretary of state and national security adviser, at first a skeptic about working with regime elements, came to believe that Delcy Rodríguez’s promises were the best way to prevent chaos once Maduro was gone.
The pledge of cooperation by Delcy and Jorge Rodríguez before the Maduro raid has not been previously reported. In October, the Miami Herald reported [https://archive.ph/gRpRB] on abortive negotiations via Qatar, in which Delcy offered to act as a transitional government chief if Maduro stepped down.
Reuters reported on Sunday that Diosdado Cabello, the powerful Venezuela interior minister, who controls police and security forces, had also been in discussions with the US at a point months before the Maduro operation.
Diosdado Cabello at a ceremony honoring Venezuelan and Cuban personnel who died during the US operation, in Caracas on 8 January 2026. Photograph: Leonardo Fernández Viloria/Reuters
All the sources say there was a fine distinction to the agreement by Delcy Rodríguez: while the Rodríguez family promised to assist the US once Maduro was gone, they did not agree to actively help the US to topple him. The sources insist this was not a coup engineered against Maduro by the Rodríguez siblings.
Hours after the raid, Trump appeared to confirm the talks. He told the New York Post that Delcy Rodríguez was onboard. “We’ve spoken to her numerous times, and she understands, she understands.”
After this story published, the Venezuelan government labeled it “fake” in a post on X but did not elaborate. The White House did not respond to detailed questions.
There were many official talks between Trump officials and the Maduro-led Venezuelan government happening on top of the backchannel conversations.
Maduro himself met with Ric Grenell, a top Trump aide, just 10 days after Trump’s inauguration, to discuss US prisoners, who were quickly released.
Law enforcement officials escort Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, out of a helicopter in New York on 5 January 2026. Photograph: Adam Gray/Reuters
Key Trump aides continued official talks with Delcy and Jorge Rodríguez quite often, to coordinate, for example, the biweekly flights of Venezuelans deported from the US, according to two sources familiar with the talks. There was a barrage of issues that had to be solved: where the deportation flights would land, the status of Venezuelans imprisoned in El Salvador and political prisoners that could be released.
Meanwhile, Delcy Rodríguez retained very close personal ties with Qatar, where members of the ruling family considered her a friend, according to sources familiar with their relationship. Qatar, a key ally of the US, donated a $400m luxury jet for Trump’s use in an unprecedented gift from a foreign country to a US president. It used the good will it had in Trump’s White House to open more doors for Rodríguez in secret negotiations, two of the sources said.
As the Miami Herald reported in October, Rodríguez tried to propose a transition government, led by her, that would rule Venezuela if Maduro agreed to a prearranged retirement in a presumed safe haven. The plan fell through, and Rodríguez fiercely denounced the story, but key Americans began to think she was far from a two-dimensional dogmatic leader.
Those who know her describe a figure with disarming quirks that help her form bonds easily. She drinks champagne and has a private table tennis coach and a tendency to challenge foreign dignitaries to games.
By October, sources say, even the Americans who were most aggressive against Maduro were open to working with her.
One factor was her promise to work with US oil companies and her acquaintance with Americans in the oil business. “Delcy is the most committed to working with US oil,” an ally of hers said.
The sources said Mauricio Claver-Carone, a former Trump special envoy for Latin America who still had the ear of Marco Rubio despite being out of government, was one key backer.
Claver-Carone declined to comment.
Delcy Rodríguez in Caracas on 15 January 2026. Photograph: Xinhua/Shutterstock
The main goal for the US was stability once Maduro was out, given the predictions of civil war and chaos. Another of the sources said “the biggest thing was trying to avoid a failed state”.
It wasn’t until late fall that Delcy Rodríguez and her brother actually engaged in discussions with the US behind Maduro’s back.
Maduro spoke to Trump on the phone in November, and by the next week it was clear Maduro would not leave.
For Delcy Rodríguez, it was a delicate dance. At the same time they made the offer, the sources say she did not agree to actively betray Maduro. “She feared him,” said one official familiar with the events.
When the US attack helicopters flew into Caracas in early January, Delcy Rodríguez was nowhere to be found. Rumors spread that she had fled to Moscow, but two sources say she was on Margarita Island, a Venezuelan vacation spot.
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#2:
“Bank directors urge firing of Trump official in ethics probe”
23 September 2022, AP, Joshua Goodman
MIAMI (AP) — Executive directors of the Inter-American Development Bank voted unanimously Thursday to recommend firing a former Trump official as president of the Washington-based institution, a person familiar with the vote said.
The move came after an investigation conducted at the bank board’s request determined that Mauricio Claver-Carone
[https://web.archive.org/web/20260510043543/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mauricio_Claver-Carone]
violated ethics rules by favoring a top aide with whom he had a romantic relationship, according to a report obtained by The Associated Press.
The recommendation to remove Claver-Carone came in a closed-door meeting of the bank’s 14 executive directors, according to the person, who insisted on not being quoted by name. The ultimate decision to fire Claver-Carone now rests with the finance officials who sit on the Board of Governors representing all 48 of the bank’s member nations.
Among those pushing for Claver-Carone’s removal is the Biden administration, which said it was troubled by Claver-Carone’s refusal to fully cooperate with an independent probe.
“His creation of a climate of fear of retaliation among staff and borrowing countries has forfeited the confidence of the Bank’s staff and shareholders and necessitates a change in leadership,” a Treasury Department spokesperson said.
Claver-Carone remained defiant in the aftermath of the vote, saying in a statement that replacing him would somehow embolden China, which saw its influence in the bank expand dramatically during the Obama administration. He provided no evidence to back that claim.
“It’s shameful the U.S. commented to the press before notifying me and that it is not defending two Americans against what is clearly fabricated information,” he said.
The AP obtained the confidential investigative report by a law firm hired by the bank’s board to look into an anonymous complaint of misconduct against Claver-Carone.
Investigators said it is reasonable to conclude he carried on a relationship with his chief of staff since at least 2019, when both held senior positions on the National Security Council. They said the purported relationship prompted one U.S. official at the time to warn that it posed a counterintelligence risk.
Exhibit A in the 21-page report is a “contract” that the two purportedly drew up on the back of a place mat in the summer of 2019 while they dined at a steakhouse in Medellin, Colombia. Both were there attending the annual meeting of the Organization of American States.
In it, they allegedly outline a timeline for divorcing their spouses and getting married. There is also a “breach clause” stating that any failure to fulfill the terms would bring “sadness and heartbreak” that could only be mitigated by “candlewax and a naughty box” from an oceanfront hotel in Claver-Carone’s native Miami.
“We deserve absolute happiness. May only God part w/ this covenant,” according to the contract, a photo of which was provided to investigators by the woman’s former husband, who told investigators he found the placemat in her purse when she returned from the trip.
The purported contract is one of several details in the report that have Claver-Carone fighting to save his job. They include allegations he had a 1 a.m. hotel room rendezvous with his chief of staff, sent her a poem on a Sunday morning titled “My Soul is in a Hurry” and — perhaps most troubling — awarded her 40% pay raises in violation of the bank’s conflict-of-interest policies.
Claver-Carone has disputed the report’s accuracy, strongly denouncing the manner in which the review was conducted and offering no hint that he is considering resignation.
According to investigators, he has denied ever having — now or before — a romantic relationship with his longtime right hand.
His chief of staff denied the allegations in the anonymous complaint and told investigators she never violated the IDB’s code of ethics, the report said. In a written submission to investigators, she also complained that she had been denied due process.
The AP isn’t naming Claver-Carone’s aide because the report, which is labeled “confidential,” hasn’t been made public.
“Neither I nor any other IDB staff member has been given an opportunity to review the final investigative report, respond to its conclusions, or correct inaccuracies,” Claver-Carone said in a statement Tuesday.
The findings recall accusations of ethical lapses against another Republican atop a multilateral institution, former Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, who resigned as head of the World Bank in 2007 for arranging a generous pay raise for his girlfriend.
The Inter-American Development Bank is the biggest multilateral lender to Latin America, disbursing as much as $23 billion every year in efforts to alleviate poverty in the region.
The U.S. is the largest shareholder in the Washington-based bank and some inside the White House have made no secret of their dislike for Claver-Carone, whose election as IDB chief in the final months of the Trump presidency broke with tradition that a Latin American head the bank.
Some of the more salacious claims referenced in the report could not be substantiated by New York-based Davis Polk. The law firm also found no evidence that Claver-Carone knowingly broke the bank’s travel policies to cover up a romantic relationship, or retaliated against any bank employees, as was alleged in an anonymous complaint sent in March to the bank’s board.
Still, Davis Polk harshly criticized Claver-Carone and his chief of staff for failing to cooperate fully with their investigation — considering it a violation of bank policies and principles.
For example, the report said Claver-Carone failed to hand over his bank-issued mobile phone for analysis although he did provide a forensic report conducted by a consultant. Claver-Carone also didn’t share messages from his personal phone or Gmail account with his chief of staff, the report said.
“Particularly in light of their failure to cooperate, it would be reasonable to conclude that the evidence of a prior relationship, and the additional circumstantial evidence of a current relationship while they were both at the Bank, constitute a violation of the applicable Bank policies,” the report said.
Davis Polk’s report said Claver-Carone raised his aide’s pay by 40% within a year. It said that one of the raises and a change of title was ordered by Claver-Carone a day after an email exchange in which she complained about not getting sufficient respect from her co-workers.
“You figure it out. It’s your bank,” she wrote, according to the report.
Davis Polk, which also conducted the investigation that led to Andrew Cuomo’s resignation as governor of New York, faulted Claver-Carone for making employment decisions about someone with whom it believes he had been romantically involved. However, it said that other executives received similarly-sized increases and his chief of staff’s current salary of $420,000 is in line with her predecessor’s compensation.
Claver-Carone when confronted with photographs of the purported place mat “contract” during an interview this month told investigators that he had never seen the document and denied it was his handwriting or signature. He stated that the document was fraudulent and part of a scheme by his aide’s ex-husband to harm her.
In a letter to the bank’s general counsel, seen by AP, divorce lawyers for the chief of staff said her former husband had a history of cruelty and revenge that was raised in divorce proceedings. They said any evidence he supplied investigators should not be deemed credible.
However, two independent handwriting experts, one who previously worked for the FBI, concluded there was a high probability that the handwriting on the place mat — excerpts of which are displayed in the report — match Claver-Carone’s penmanship in bank documents. Claver-Carone refused to submit a handwriting sample as part of the probe, the report said.
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#3:
25 May 2026, Washington Post, Samantha Schmidt, Anthony Faiola, Karen DeYoung and Samuel Oakford
CARACAS, Venezuela — In the hours after U.S. military forces spirited away Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on Jan. 3, Secretary of State Marco Rubio placed a call to Maduro’s second-in-command, Vice President Delcy Rodríguez.
Two others were also on the line. One was her brother, Jorge Rodríguez, the head of the Venezuelan legislature, according to four people familiar with the call. The other was Rubio’s right-hand man on Venezuela: Mauricio Claver-Carone.
A Florida lawyer who briefly served as special envoy to Latin America early in President Donald Trump’s second term, Claver-Carone, 51, has no official job in the U.S. government. But as the administration was formulating plans last fall to send Maduro into exile or capture him, Claver-Carone was intimately involved, by his own account and those of others.
Since Maduro’s removal, Claver-Carone has taken on an even greater role as the unofficial U.S. viceroy of Venezuela, helping to implement the administration’s plan to work with Delcy Rodríguez and exploit the South American country’s vast oil wealth.
Working directly with Rodríguez — now the Trump-recognized interim president — her brother, Jorge, and other officials in Caracas, Claver-Carone relays instructions on behalf of Washington, according to more than 10 current and former U.S. officials, people in contact with the Venezuelan government and other knowledgeable observers who discussed his role. Most spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy and the sometimes tense relationship between the two capitals.
Claver-Carone, usually operating by phone from his home and office in southern Florida, has been instrumental in picking winners and losers among aspiring investors as the country’s long-faltering oil industry is rejuvenated, said people familiar with his dealings. Most recently, he said, he vouched for Centerview Partners, a New York-based financial firm that was among the many vying to be hired by the Venezuelan government to help restructure its $170 billion debt.
His business partner, Jessica Bedoya, has traveled multiple times this year to Caracas, each time meeting with Delcy Rodríguez, Bedoya said in an interview.
Power lines cover a billboard with a picture of ousted Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, in Caracas. (Juan Barreto/AFP/Getty Images)
Claver-Carone, in a lengthy interview with The Washington Post, described his role in Venezuela as a “connector,” whose intimate knowledge of players and policy in Washington and Caracas is needed and sought by both parties.
Claver-Carone compared his position to that of Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and negotiator in the Middle East and beyond.
But “I always joke,” he said, “you know people [say], ‘Hey, are you the Jared of Latin America?’ I’m like, ‘No, Jared is the Mauricio of the Middle East.’”
His lofty, if unofficial, position and the close hold the administration keeps on its Venezuela decision-making have raised questions about oversight in the affairs of the resource-rich nation that is emerging as a U.S. neo-colony. Under Rodríguez’s interim presidency, the country has largely avoided revolutionary convulsions while a Wild West marketplace swarms with U.S. companies and investors.
Critics say his unofficial position also highlights the lack of transparency within the Trump administration between the worlds of business and diplomacy. Although the long-shuttered U.S. Embassy in Caracas has reopened, the Venezuela portfolio is handled almost exclusively by the White House — where Rubio does double-duty as Trump’s national security adviser — rather than the State Department, according to two U.S. officials.
“For a guy who has no role in government, he plays an oversize role,” said one former U.S. official familiar with Claver-Carone’s work.
In the interview, Claver-Carone didn’t dispute his influence but said he is not making policy.
“I don’t make decisions,” he said. “That’s obviously for the president and the secretary. … I can just say ‘Hey listen, here’s what I see, here’s who I know … here’s what I do … What do you want to do? Can it work? Can it not? Here’s how you implement.’”
Trump’s Latin America fixer
Mauricio Claver-Carone, then-president of the Inter-American Development Bank, in Madrid in 2021. (Gabriel Bouys/AFP/Getty Images)
Claver-Carone has long been a controversial figure in Washington and Latin America.
The Miami-born son of Cuban expatriates who has a history of opposing left-wing governments in Havana and Caracas — a background he shares with Rubio — Claver-Carone emerged as an architect of the maximum-pressure campaign against the Maduro government during the first Trump administration, where he served as director of Western Hemisphere affairs on the White House National Security Council staff.
The administration cracked down on Maduro with sanctions and recognized an opposition figure as Venezuela’s legitimate president. Claver-Carone hurled regular threats at Maduro and his allies, insisting that their days were numbered.
When the U.S.-backed opposition plotted Maduro’s ouster by trying to enlist the head of Venezuela’s supreme court, plot operatives gave Claver-Carone a code name: Comeniños, or the child eater. The moniker reflected the view that he was enemy No. 1 of the Maduro government.
The plot collapsed and the administration, and Claver-Carone, ran out of time to continue pushing for Maduro’s removal. Over the next four years, the Biden administration unsuccessfully tried to negotiate with Maduro over holding free elections in Venezuela.
Ahead of the November 2020 election, Trump had pushed Latin American governments to elect Claver-Carone as the first American president of the Inter-American Development Bank. But after two years, the bank’s executive board unanimously voted to fire him. The vote reportedly followed an independent ethics investigation that found misconduct.
Claver-Carone declined to discuss his departure from the Inter-American Development Bank except to say he did not violate any rules and was “targeted” inside the bank and “smeared” by the media. He said he signed a nondisclosure agreement with the bank.
Back home in Florida, he co-founded a private equity firm with Bedoya, who worked for him at both the NSC and the bank and whom he describes as his “life partner.” Called the LARA Fund, the firm aims to match U.S. investors with worthy projects in Latin America. But Trump’s reelection in 2024 soon brought him back into government.
Jessica Bedoya, then-chief of staff and chief strategy officer at the Inter-American Development Bank, in 2022. (Leigh Vogel/Getty Images for Concordia Summit)
A month before Trump’s second inauguration, the president-elect named Claver-Carone to become the State Department’s special envoy to Latin America, a temporary, 130-day appointment that did not require Senate confirmation.
He spent much of his time working on Cuba and Venezuela, both of whose governments were on Trump and Rubio’s priority list as the administration declared its intent to dominate the Western Hemisphere. He also helped orchestrate the deportation of more than 230 Venezuelan migrants to a mega prison in El Salvador.
Near the end of his temporary term in May last year, Claver-Carone resigned and resumed his work for the LARA Fund, which he said he had left in Bedoya’s hands during his temporary time in government. But in midsummer, the White House came calling again, he said, this time because “the president had made some decisions of things he wanted to do in Venezuela.”
Planning a post-Maduro Venezuela
Claver-Carone and Bedoya, whose earlier career focused on Western Hemisphere affairs at the CIA and State Department, were asked as private citizens to help “find a solution to the Venezuela policy problem” and present options for “what a post-Maduro Venezuela could look like,” Bedoya said in an interview with The Post. “We provided suggestions and advice for how to pursue a brand-new bilateral relationship.”
The result was a three-phase plan — stability, economic recovery and political transition — for a future Venezuela without Maduro. In December, when Maduro declined a U.S. offer to help arrange a comfortable third-country exile, the military mission to snatch and deposit him in a New York prison to face U.S. charges of corruption and drug-trafficking was put in motion.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrives at a dedication ceremony for an annex building at the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi, India, on May 23, 2026. (Julia Demaree Nikhinson/Julia Demaree Nikhinson/Pool AP via AP)
The administration’s first order of post-Maduro business was stability. On the Jan. 3 call with Delcy Rodríguez, the people familiar with it said, Rubio and Claver-Carone laid out an offer to recognize her as interim president, with her brother staying on as president of the National Assembly. But they made it clear that Washington would be calling the shots.
They told the siblings if they did not cooperate with Trump’s plans to “run” Venezuela, as the president later put it in remarks to reporters, there could be more U.S. military attacks against the Venezuelan leadership like the one that had removed Maduro just hours before.
In a news conference after Maduro’s capture, Trump cited Rubio’s conversation with Rodríguez and said she was “essentially willing to do what we think is necessary to make Venezuela great again.” He said the United States had been prepared to stage “a second and much larger attack” if she hadn’t agreed.
Asked about his previously unreported participation in the call with Rodríguez, Claver-Carone said, “I’m not ready to tell that story yet” and suggested posing the question to Rubio.
Venezuelan acting president Delcy Rodríguez embraces her brother, Jorge Rodríguez, during a march in Caracas in April that called for the lifting of all U.S. sanctions. (Juan Barreto/AFP/Getty Images)
Diplomatic disturbances
Claver-Carone’s extensive and unorthodox involvement in the relations between Washington and Caracas, along with his self-described “sharp elbows” and impatience with “bulls—,” have frustrated some in the State Department and raised questions over potential conflicts of interest.
Shortly after the Maduro raid, State Department employees focused on Latin America were told to stand down on Venezuela policy. Only a small circle of people centered in the White House, are involved in Venezuela decision-making, two U.S. officials said.
Claver-Carone said he met with career diplomat Laura F. Dogu before she went to Venezuela in January to prepare to reopen the U.S. Embassy, and he met with John M. Barrett before he arrived as charge d’affaires in April.
His deep knowledge of Venezuela and high-level administration contacts, he said, allows Rubio to attend to his wider responsibilities.
“Delcy has Marco’s number, they can talk, she can text him,” Claver-Carone said. “But the secretary of state has like a million … issues. He’s doing a lot of stuff. So at the end of the day, when the secretary is not there, she’s like, ‘Oh my God, do you think that you know’ whatever? And I’m like, ‘Hey, listen, let me talk to them and I’ll figure it out, and they’ll get back to you.’”
“That is very normal, that’s called track-two diplomacy,” he said.
The White House referred all questions about Claver-Carone’s role, potential conflicts of interest and Bedoya’s flights to Caracas to the State Department.
The State Department did not respond to specific questions or a request to interview a senior official.
In an emailed statement, a State Department spokesperson said Claver-Carone “is an expert with contacts throughout our region and as a good U.S. citizen routinely consults and shares his perceptions with U.S. officials. … But he does not currently have an official role in the Trump Administration and is not acting on behalf of the United States government or issuing instructions to U.S. or foreign officials.”
“Any insinuation of that nature is abundantly false,” the spokesperson said.
Claver-Carone also dismissed any suggestion of a conflict, saying neither he personally nor the LARA Fund have any Venezuelan investments. Venezuela is not yet in the fund’s “risk profile,” he said, adding, “I hope one day it will be.” He noted the firm’s “first three deals” in the works are in El Salvador, Mexico and Paraguay.
Bedoya said that the fund — which in U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings said it was seeking to raise at least $1 billion — has not yet received any investment money but has a number of projects in the planning stage.
Venezuelan acting president Delcy Rodríguez with U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright in Caracas in February. (Juan Barreto/AFP/Getty Images)
Both Claver-Carone and Bedoya said they are not paid for their work for the government. Bedoya declined to say who paid for her frequent travel to Venezuela.
“My role really has been to come in on strategic matters, to either reinforce a message from the White House or the State Department or to facilitate the execution of certain activities that are a priority” to Trump, she said.
According to Venezuelan flight records reviewed by The Post, she was on the same chartered flight on Feb. 12 as two Centerview executives, Matthieu Pigasse and Charles Albinet. The firm later finalized the contract with Venezuela for what is believed to be one of the world’s largest sovereign debt default cases.
Claver-Carone and Bedoya said she had only “hitched a ride” with Centerview on a trip that also coincided with a Caracas visit by U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright. Bedoya said she was on a separate mission to “touch base” with Delcy and Jorge Rodríguez in person.
In a text message, Pigasse said there “is absolutely NO role of Mauricio Claver in our assignment.”
Colombian businessman Alex Saab, shown in 2023, was once a close associate of Maduro. (Leonardo Fernandez Viloria/Reuters)
A spokesman for Centerview said that neither Claver-Carone nor Bedoya were involved in the firm’s pitch for the Venezuela contract, which it won because of its “unique experience working on the largest sovereign-debt restructurings in the world” and “absence of any conflict of interest.”
Bedoya said she has met with Delcy Rodríguez every time she has traveled to Venezuela this year, including earlier this month when she went to Caracas to “handle the Alex Saab transfer.” Saab, a businessman who was once a close associate of Maduro, was turned over by the government in Caracas to face U.S. money-laundering charges.
Winding down and ramping up
In the months since Maduro’s removal, Venezuela’s interim president and her influential brother have grown increasingly uncomfortable with Claver-Carone’s role, according to four people familiar with their thinking.
Venezuelan government officials apparently felt pressured by Claver-Carone to hire Centerview, according to six people familiar with the discussions. Claver-Carone adamantly insisted, in The Post interview, that he only assured Rodríguez, when asked, that it was a reputable U.S. firm with significant experience in Latin America.
Calixto Ortega Sánchez, Venezuela’s sectoral vice president for the economy, said in an emailed statement that the government had “engaged with several leading financial advisory firms” for its debt restructuring process.
Centerview Partners, he said, “distinguished itself through its deep understanding of the situation, the long-standing relationship that its senior bankers have developed with us … its impeccable track-record and the thoughtfulness of its approach.”
From left, Jared Kushner, Special Envoy for Peace Missions Steve Witkoff and Vice President JD Vance in April. (Jacquelyn Martin/Reuters)
“I think they’re scared,” said one person in close contact with Delcy and Jorge Rodríguez. “But these two, they’re survivors. In some ways, this is a game they know how to play.”
Claver-Carone said his role as unofficial government liaison is winding down as the reopened U.S. Embassy adds staff and becomes more conversant with the issues. With Delcy Rodríguez s stability nominally assured — no elections have yet been planned — oil is flowing again, the proceeds deposited into a Citibank account controlled by the U.S. Treasury, which in turn distributes the money to Venezuela. Trump has said that the U.S. keeps some of it, which he said has already paid for the Jan. 3 military operation.
Claver-Carone said that Venezuela is “on the cusp” of moving between phase one of the administration plan — stability — to phase two’s economic recovery.
He acknowledges that not everyone is happy with his abrupt ways and level of influence, particularly those with prior monetary interests in Venezuela that he says were robbing the country blind.
But his defenders argue he should be judged on performance.
“Mauricio did not join government to make friends,” said Pedro Burelli, a former board member of Venezuela’s state oil giant and a longtime Maduro critic. “He did it in order to get things done, and his sharp elbows do most of the talking. You have to judge him on the result.”
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#4:
“Delcy’s ‘gatekeeper’: sources say ex-Trump official Claver-Carone holds keys to Caracas”
25 May 2026, The Gray Zone, MAX BLUMENTHAL
A mastermind of Trump’s hardline Latin American policies, Mauricio Claver-Carone no longer serves in the administration. But according to well-placed sources, he’s “picking who can operate” in Venezuela, controlling access to the government, and creating conflicts of interest.
Speaking with reporters on May 21, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that Venezuelan President Delcy Rodriguez was on her way to New Delhi to discuss energy issues, and that he would be in India as well.
“This is an important trip, I’m glad we’re able to do it,” Rubio chirped after explaining the trio of nations would discuss how to increase Venezuelan oil sales to India.
His statement — and his announcement of Rodriguez’s trip before she had — perfectly illustrated Washington’s newfound dynamic with the Venezuelan government. Following over twenty years of hostile relations with Venezuela’s socialist-oriented leadership, the US Secretary of State was apparently so intimately involved with day to day affairs in Caracas that he was claiming responsibility for Rodriguez’s international itinerary.
In fact, according to an insider who enjoys close contacts within both the Venezuelan and US governments, Rubio’s influence over Rodriguez is said to be traced to one “gatekeeper”: former Trump Latin America envoy Mauricio Claver-Carone. “Mauricio [Claver-Carone] is picking who can operate and Delcy [Rodriguez] is taking instructions,” the source told The Grayzone.
A former senior US official with access to leadership in both Caracas and Washington offered the same assessment, remarking to The Grayzone, “Mauricio’s calling the shots on private sector economic positions, and if anyone wants in, they have to go to him.”
Hand-selected by former National Security Advisor John Bolton to serve as his Latin America charge during Trump’s first term, Claver-Carone no longer occupies an official governmental role. Instead, he has leveraged his legacy in the public sector to establish a Miami-based investment firm called the Lara Fund which could become a key player in the MAGA financial feeding frenzy in Caracas.
Described by the New York Times as the “architect of Trump’s tough Latin America policies,” Claver-Carone is a Cuban-American regime change zealot who once engaged in fisticuffs with Cuban diplomats as a young man. During Trump’s first term, he unleashed a financial “flamethrower” on Cuba, issuing scores of new sanctions that unraveled the Obama-era normalization policy and plunged the island back into economic misery.
Claver-Carone has similarly masterminded many of the policies that define Trump’s relationship with Venezuela, from its recognition of the previously unknown Juan Guaido as the country’s “interim president” to the deportation of hundreds of Venezuelan migrants from the US to El Salvador’s maximum security CECOT prison. Many of those migrants had been prompted to journey to the US by the economically crushing sanctions unleashed at Claver-Carone’s direction.
The Grayzone’s sources described the Trump veteran as the architect of the military invasion that saw Maduro spirited away to a federal penitentiary and installed Rodriguez as president following a stand-down by Venezuelan security forces.
“If he was in charge of implementing the kinetic side, maybe [Rodriguez] thinks she has to listen to him on finance,” the Venezuela insider said of Claver-Carone.
A report this January by investigative journalist Aram Roston described Claver-Carone as a “key backer” of Rodriguez following Maduro’s abduction, and cited sources who claimed he exercised decisive influence over Venezuela policy despite having left the administration.
Claver-Carone is now said to be at the heart of the most sensitive and consequential task Venezuela faces: the restructuring of its $170 billion in defaulted sovereign debt. Forced from several previous positions by corruption scandals and rancorous clashes, an operative with no official governmental position appears to be shaping the economic contours of Project Venezuela.
“He’s got a lock on everything”
This May, the US Treasury Department authorized Caracas to hire a financial advisor to assist with the herculean task of restructuring its debt. The Venezuelan government selected Centerview Partners, a top-drawer investment and financial advisory firm based in New York City.
According to the former US senior official, Claver-Carone’s romantic partner and business colleague, Jessica Bedoya, boarded a private jet to Caracas soon after the big announcement, arriving with a top advisor from Centerview. It was her second trip to the Venezuelan capital, they said, after visiting in February to discuss financial matters.
Claver-Carone did not respond to calls to his personal phone from The Grayzone, or to detailed questions sent by text and email.
His partner, Bedoya, is the founder of the Lara Fund investment firm where he serves as managing partner. Her bio notes that she has also worked in the CIA and National Security Council.
Jessica Bedoya and Mauricio Claver-Carone’s headshots, as featured on Lara Fund’s webpage
Some insiders worry that her reported presence in the Venezuelan capital, together with Claver-Carone’s outsized influence, could represent a conflict of interest, allowing them to steer debt restructuring agreements to their own personal benefit.
“Now he’s got a lock on everything,” the Venezuela insider said of Claver-Carone. “He could say to anyone who wants to work in Venezuela, I’m the guy. I have the keys. If you want to play ball, invest with me.”
The former US official said Claver-Carone was raising capital for his Lara Fund while he served as a special government employee at the State Department. While Bedoya was running the firm, they said Claver-Carone was leveraging his position inside the Trump administration to pitch potential investors.
“Arbitrary and authoritarian actions that showed him to be a real thug”
When Trump appointed Claver-Carone to serve as the first American president of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) in 2020, he hired Bedoya as his chief-of-staff. The couple’s secret romance at the bank triggered an embarrassing ethics investigation after a hand-written contract was discovered showing they had agreed to pursue “absolute happiness,” and included a clause with punishments including “candle wax and a naughty box” if either party breached the deal.
An independent probe ordered by the IDB discovered that Claver-Carone had increased his paramour’s salary by 40% – a $133,000 reward in less than a year. Investigators also found that the couple had racked up expenses on an IDB credit card during romantic getaways.
Claver-Carone refused to participate in the investigation while accusing its authors of “fabrications.” In the end, IDB governors voted unanimously in favor of his firing. The US government endorsed their decision.
“President Claver-Carone’s refusal to fully cooperate with the investigation, and his creation of a climate of fear of retaliation among staff and borrowing countries, has forfeited the confidence of the bank’s staff and shareholders and necessitates a change in leadership,” they wrote.
The Argentine governor of IDB, Guillermo Francos, delivered a similarly harsh assessment of Claver-Carone’s tenure. “Claver was a disaster for several reasons,” Francos remarked in 2022. “For having an inappropriate relationship, for having disproportionately increased the salary of this inappropriate relationship, for having lied, and for these arbitrary and authoritarian actions that showed him to be a real thug.”
When Claver-Carone returned to the second Trump administration, it was not long before his proclivity for conflict jeopardized his position.
Throughout 2025, Claver-Carone’s spiteful attitude reportedly complicated Trump administration attempts to prop up a key right-wing ally in South America, Argentine President Javier Milei. Milei’s chief of staff happened to be Guillermo Francos – the former IDB governor whom Claver-Carone held personally responsible for outing his secret relationship with Bedoya. According to the Argentine paper Clarin, Claver-Carone attempted to retaliate by unsuccessfully pressuring Milei to fire Francos. He then attempted to undermine a major IMF loan package to Argentina by demanding the country first sever its credit line from China. This was met with an apparent rebuke from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who visited Buenos Aires to express confidence in the IMF loan just weeks after Argentina’s central bank extended its credit line from Beijing.
The following month, in May 2025, Claver-Carone announced he was leaving the State Department to return to his Lara Fund. His departure gave the appearance that he had been forced out of his job, however, he maintained his clout through his direct line to Rubio.
The former US official told The Grayzone that Claver-Carone is now angling to become a Cuban American version of Jared Kushner, the Trump son-in-law who has leveraged his proximity to the president and role as Middle East negotiator to rake in billions from Israel and several Gulf monarchies despite having no official government title. To do so, he has allegedly inserted himself into the byzantine process of restructuring Venezuela’s debt.
When the Trump administration announced that Venezuela could hire a financial advisor to assist with its sovereign debt, Rodriguez initially planned a public bidding process for the coveted position. But then, according to the ex-US official, Claver-Carone issued support for Centerview, leading to the firm’s selection. (Opposition bloggers have speculated that Centerview was chosen because one of its partners, Matthieu Pigasse, is a self-described “pro-market socialist” who previously worked on deals with Maduro and Venezuela’s state owned PDVSA oil company.)
In recent weeks, according to sources, Claver-Carone has attempted to undermine financial advisors who had been working with the Venezuelan government to restructure its debt since 2014.
They said that when Claver-Carone’s partner, Bedoya, arrived in Caracas this month, allegedly on a private jet with Pigasse, she began pushing to remove the advisory mandate from David Syed, a seasoned French lawyer who had advised Caracas on debt-related issues for over a decade, and is considered incorruptible.
“The effort to push [Syed] out created a lot of tension,” remarked the Venezuela insider. “You can’t understand debt restructuring by parachuting in without his knowledge.”
Syed did not respond to The Grayzone’s request for comment. Hamouda Chekir, another Centerview partner who works on Venezuela’s debt, did not respond to calls and text messages sent to his personal phone.
Scandal-stained firms as vehicles for extracting profit from Venezuela
Just before leaving the State Department in May 2025, Claver-Carone convinced Rubio not to renew a sanctions waiver that allowed Chevron to sell Venezuelan oil in the US market. In doing so, he eliminated a mechanism which was explicitly designed to promote transparency and prevent local officials from skimming cash.
This January, after abducting Maduro, the Trump administration granted confidential licenses to a pair of notoriously corrupt trading houses, Vitol and Trafigura, to export Venezuelan oil. The deal came months after Trump’s re-election campaign received a whopping $6 million donation from a senior trader at Vitol.
Robert Bachmann, an analyst at the Swiss watchdog Public Eye, told the Washington Post at the time, “Trump is taking advantage of firms that know how to circumvent regulation.”
Both companies had been caught engaging in a series of elaborate bribery schemes across Latin America and Africa. In 2020, the Department of Justice (DOJ) forced Vitol to pay a $135 million penalty for bribing officials for licenses in Mexico, Ecuador and Brazil. Trafigura paid a similarly staggering fine in 2024 for a lucrative bribery scheme in Brazil. In the US, Vitol was rung up by the California Attorney General for manipulating spot market prices of oil.
But almost as soon as the Trump administration entered office, it neutered the DOJ corrupt foreign practices division charged with enforcing the judgments against Trafigura and Vitol on the grounds that it was “impeding America’s national security objectives.”
Now, the profits these scandal-stained firms generate through oil sales abroad – including to Israel – are channeled back into a US-run account with little public oversight. A percentage of sales is then delivered back to the Venezuelan government. Where the rest goes is anybody’s guess.
“The Venezuelans are the owners of the oil, and we know nothing. There is no transparency,” said José Guerra, an economist aligned with the Venezuelan opposition, complained to the Washington Post about the Trafigura and Vitol licensing agreements.
Trump, for his part, has essentially admitted Venezuelan oil profits are channeled into a slush fund for his international rampage. “We’ve taken out so much oil in Venezuela, we’ve paid for the cost of the war [with Iran] about 25 times over,” the president boasted during a May 23 campaign rally. While the president’s claim was absurd, as Venezuela is currently exporting only about one million barrels of oil a month – hardly enough to cover a full day of warfare – it revealed his avaricious attitude toward the entire operation.
Among certain Venezuelan opposition activists, Claver-Carone has become a figure of contempt who is partially blamed for Trump’s declaration that their de facto leader, the coup plotter and Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corina Machado, “doesn’t have the support within, or the respect within, the country.”
The Trump administration’s embrace of Delcy Rodriguez, and the Venezuelan president’s faithful compliance with Washington’s financial schemes, have prompted some top Democrats to adopt Machado as a partisan cudgel. This January, Chris Murphy, a ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, praised the opposition leader as “impressive” following a meeting on Capitol Hill, while taking a nasty swipe at Rodriguez. Machado “reminded us that Trump replaced Maduro with Maduro’s head of torture,” Murphy proclaimed.
We held a bipartisan meeting with Maria Corina Machado, the opposition leader in Venezuela.
Machado is impressive, and is walking a fine line – standing up for her country while trying to placate Trump. She reminded us that Trump replaced Maduro with Maduro’s head of torture. pic.twitter.com/WsamMv5eG7
— Chris Murphy 🟧 (@ChrisMurphyCT) January 16, 2026
If the Democrats take Congress after this year’s midterm elections, the Trump administration’s dealings in Venezuela will face intense scrutiny from the House Oversight Committee. [As-if the Democratic Party’s billionaires should be trusted more than the Republican Party’s billionaires.] Bipartisan pressure will then build for fresh elections to usher in a new government. “Delcy Rodríguez is a terrible person,” the regime change-obsessed Florida Republican Sen. Rick Scott told the Wall Street Journal this month. “We’ve got to have an election soon.”
In the meantime, a flock of MAGA-aligned financial vultures has swooped into Caracas to feast on the petro-state’s post-Maduro carcass. Donald Trump Jr. is said to be hunting for opportunities in the capital for his 1789 Capital fund, while a startup backed by pro-Trump tech oligarchs Peter Thiel and Palmer Luckey, Erebor Bank, just struck a lucrative deal to reconnect Venezuela’s central bank to the global economy. In the midst of this frenzy, a figure with no government title, Claver-Carone, appears to be establishing the new pecking order.
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#5:
https://www.aol.com/news/exiled-leader-vows-return-venezuela-210916140.html
“Exiled leader vows to return to Venezuela, run for president”
FINYA SWAI
Tue. 26 May 2026, The Hill, Finya Swai
Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado on Saturday said she plans to return to Venezuela before the end of 2026 and run for president again.
Speaking at a gathering of fellow Venezuelan opposition leaders in Panama, Machado said the opposition remains committed to a democratic transition of power “through free and fair presidential elections, where all Venezuelans inside and outside the country vote.”
Her remarks come four months after the Trump administration publicly backed ruling-party loyalist and Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez as Venezuela’s leader following Nicolás Maduro’s capture by the U.S. military in January.
Machado had worked to win over support from the White House and publicly praised the administration’s intervention in Venezuela. Still, she was sidelined by President Trump who cast doubt on her political viability.
“She doesn’t have the support within or the respect within the country,” Trump said at a press conference at Mar-a-Lago in January.
The Trump administration has since praised acting Rodríguez’s willingness to open Venezuela’s oil industry to foreign investors and pursue closer diplomatic ties with the U.S. amid a heightened global energy demand.
Machado has also laid out plans to open the country’s oil industry to the rest of the world, telling oil executives at the CERAWeek conference in Houston in March that Venezuela could quintuple its crude production by overhauling its oil rules and transitioning to a democratic government.
Machado had been living in exile, making her first public appearance in December when she traveled to Norway to accept a Nobel Peace Prize award. She said she presented the award to Trump, when the two later met at the White House, as a token of appreciation.
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#6:
https://orientalreview.su/2025/10/11/nobel-peace-prize-goes-to-venezuelas-racist-fascist-u-s-agent/
“Nobel Peace Prize Goes To Venezuela’s Racist-Fascist U.S. Agent”
11 October 2025, Eric Zuesse, Oriental Review
Maria Corina Machado, winner of the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize, dedicated her prize to Trump, who is a co-conspirator and is the main armaments-supplier to Israel’s genocide against the Gazans, and she too supports Israel’s war against the Gazans. She is a member of one of Venezuela’s three oligarchic families, and has long been striving to become Venezuela’s President, but is best known as having advocated for her fellow far-right politicians whom the U.S. Government has been backing to be Venezuela’s President, Juan Guido and Leopoldo Lopez. An excellent and comprehensive article about Venezuela’s three oligarchic families’ U.S.-backed efforts to take control over Venezuela’s Government so as to be able to skim that country’s natural resources in partnership with America’s billionaires, was Brandon Turbeville’s 15 June 2017 “What The Hell Is Happening In Venezuela?”. He quotes there extensively from Eva Golinger’s 25 February 2015 “US Aggression Against Venezuela: Fact, Not Fiction”. Another article pertains especially to Machado: Maria Paez Viktor’s 2 August 2024 “Venezuela: An Attempted Coup By Any Other Name”. It reported:
Millions of eligible voters cast their electronic ballots before the presence of more than 635 international witnesses including electoral experts of the United Nations, the African Union, and electoral staff of 65 countries. How many international witnesses are allowed for the USA or Canadian elections? None.
Nicolás Maduro was re-elected with 51.2% of votes (5,150,092 votes), and the far-right candidate Edmundo González lost with 44.2% of votes (4,445,978 votes). The other 8 opposition leaders received 4.6% of the total votes cast. This is the statistically irreversible results given out by the constitutional Electoral Authority (CNE) on election day, 28 July 2024, having examined and audited 80% of the votes. These results were audited 16 times.
However, the rest of the 20% votes have not yet (at the writing of this article) been released because of a massive cyber-attack. The elements of the electronic system that transmit the results to the central point was hacked over a hundred times in a most sophisticated manner that was traced to North Macedonia.
The Attorney General, Tarek William Saab, named as responsible for this cyber-attack: Lester Toledo, Leopoldo López, and M. Corina Machado. Furthermore, President Maduro implicated Elon Musk, considering him a far-right fanatic who has the technology to pull an attack like this and has many times denigrated Venezuela. It is alleged that Musk supported the supposed “humanitarian” invasion of Venezuela through Colombia in 2019. He famously said “We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it.” Musk must desire Venezuela’s lithium, apart its oil and gold.
Machado is now the U.S. Deep State’s Venezuelan puppet, successor to Juan Gaido and Leopoldo Lopez, to be appointed (none of them would be democratically elected) as Venezuela’s President (they’re viewed in Venezuela as being traitors, no matter how unpopular Maduro is there).
Many experts on international affairs are expecting Trump soon to launch an outright military invasion of Venezuela that’s based on his Administration’s lies that Venezuela is more of a source of illegal drugs into America than Colombia and Mexico are.
On 26 January 2018, the UN independent expert Alfred de Zayas was headlined “UN Independent Expert: Sanctions Must be Terminated and Economic War Must End”. He said that America’s economic blockade and sanctions against Venezuela are what has impoverished its people — not Venezuela’s Government. And now the Nobel Committee, which gave their 2009 Peace Prize to U.S. President Obama, is giving this year’s to Machado in order to help Trump get Machado to become Venezuela’s President. Perhaps that Committee figured that giving it to Trump would be too blatant, because his fascism is widely known, whereas Machado is very little known outside of Veneuela and the Washington Beltway. Giving that Prize to Trump would have crashed the Nobels altogether.
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#7:
“Trump says Venezuela is ‘really happy’, but poll shows fast-growing discontent”
6 May 2026, Antonio María Delgado – Miami Herald (TNS)
President Donald Trump says Venezuelans are “really happy” as the country undergoes political change, but new polling data suggests a growing disconnect between Washington’s optimism and public sentiment inside Venezuela.
Speaking Monday at a White House event, Trump highlighted what he described as a shift in Venezuela’s social and economic climate following the removal of Nicolás Maduro from power earlier this year.
“The people of Venezuela are really happy,” Trump said, adding that in the country “things are happening that they haven’t seen in 20 years.”
He also pointed to a renewed “spirit” in Venezuelan society and strengthening bilateral ties, including increased flows of Venezuelan crude to the United States.
“We have hundreds of millions of barrels of oil coming out of Venezuela, going to Houston and different places to be refined,” he said.
His remarks come amid a shift in U.S. policy toward Caracas, marked by closer energy cooperation and the opening of key sectors — particularly oil — to foreign investment under the interim government of Delcy Rodríguez.
But the latest data from Venezuelan polling firm Meganálisis paints a starkly different picture.
The survey, conducted in the third week of April, shows a sharp drop in support for Trump among Venezuelans. While 92% of respondents in January said they felt grateful to the U.S. president following Maduro’s capture, that figure had fallen to 47% by April — a decline of 45 percentage points in just three months.
The drop appears to coincide with Trump’s growing closeness to Rodríguez, who assumed power on Jan. 5.
Ruben Chirinos, president of Meganálisis, said the decline reflects a widening gap between expectations after Maduro’s removal and the slower pace of change on the ground. Speaking to Venezuelan outlet VPItv, he noted that initial gratitude toward Washington — which peaked above 90% in early January — has eroded rapidly as Venezuelans reassess the direction of the transition.
According to Chirinos, much of the discontent stems from a perception that economic interests, particularly in the oil sector, are taking precedence over the well-being of ordinary citizens. The data shows strong rejection of Trump’s backing of Rodríguez, with many Venezuelans increasingly uneasy about what they see as a policy focused more on energy deals than on political or institutional change.
He added that while some changes have taken place since January, they have been limited and slow to materialize, fueling frustration among a population that had expected a more decisive break from the past. Announcements of energy agreements and foreign investment have been accompanied by conflicting signals from industry representatives citing a lack of legal certainty, while the continued presence of figures linked to the previous regime has further undermined confidence.
“The country is at a crossroads of uncertainty,” Chirinos said. “The only one who appears to be certain is Donald Trump, when he says he is very happy with Delcy Rodríguez. But Venezuelans are not happy with Delcy Rodríguez.”
That sentiment is reflected in the broader data. Rejection of Trump’s relationship with Rodríguez is overwhelming: 89% of respondents oppose Washington negotiating with or backing the interim leader, compared with just 3% who support it.
At the same time, nearly half of those surveyed — 47% — now avoid taking a position on Trump, suggesting growing uncertainty or disillusionment.
Public perception of the country’s trajectory also remains largely negative. According to the poll, 78% believe Venezuela is “on the wrong track” under Rodríguez’s provisional leadership, while more than 70% say their family’s economic situation would worsen significantly if she remains in power.
Disapproval of Rodríguez’s performance is especially high across key areas. In the economy, rejection reaches 95%; in public services, 95%; in democracy and civil liberties, 94%; and in healthcare, 87%. In all cases, approval remains below 4%.
…
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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s latest book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of this site. This site does not give financial, investment or medical advice.
