To No One's Surprise, NYTimes says Trump Administration Met With Venezuelan Coup Plotters

U.S. President Donald Trump threatened Venezuela with a "military option" in August 2017. | Photo: Reuters

According to a report by the New York Times, United States officials have been meeting with Venezuelan coup plotters for over a year.

Members of the United States government led by president Donald Trump have been meeting with Venezuelan military officers who have been actively plotting to oust democratically elected president Nicolas Maduro since mid-2017.

Ernesto Londoño and Nicholas Casey, writers for the renowned New York Times, published a report Saturday detailing the exchanges between U.S. officials and Venezuela coup plotters. According to their account of the “secret” meetings were compiled from interviews with 11 “current and former” U.S. officials and a former Venezuelan commander, speaking under condition of anonymity.

Through the interviews, the writers were able to gather that conversations began after Trump declared in August 2017 that the U.S. had a “military option” for Venezuela, which “encouraged rebellious Venezuelan military officers to reach out to Washington.”

During the first meetings, one of the attendees allegedly told U.S. officials they could convince small groups within the Venezuelan military to plot against the Maduro government.

Aside from confirming what the Venezuelan government has repeatedly warned against, namely the active plotting against the Maduro government by “political opposition” and U.S. participation, Londoño and Casey also revealed the U.S. designated a career diplomat to attend the conversations, listen and report on them.

A senior U.S. administration official who also spoke to the reporters under the condition of anonymity said the Trump administration had considered dispatching a veteran Central Intelligence Agency official, Juan Cruz, but later decided “it would be more prudent to send a career diplomat instead.”

The NYTimes article claims that “in the fall of 2017, the diplomat reported that the Venezuelans didn’t appear to have a detailed plan and had shown up at the encounter hoping the Americans would offer guidance or ideas.”

However, the officers had explicitly “asked the U.S. to supply them with encrypted radios, citing the need to communicate securely, as they developed a plan to install a transitional government to run the country until elections could be held.” Londoño and Casey report U.S. officials did not provide material support, and “the plans unraveled after a recent crackdown that led to the arrest of dozens of the plotters.”

On August 4, during the Bolivarian National Armed Forces 81st-anniversary celebrations, two drones packed with C4 exploded in an attempt to assassinate president Maduro, several other government officals and guest. Over 40 people, including opposition legislator Julio Borges and retired colonel Oswaldo Garcia, have been linked to the attack.

The current state of the relation and collaboration between U.S. and Venezuelan officials to topple Maduro is unknown.

Source URL