Tag: venezuela

US planning CIA foothold in post-Maduro Venezuela

The CIA is quietly working to establish a permanent US presence on the ground in Venezuela, spearheading the Trump administration’s plans to exert its newfound influence over the country’s future, according to multiple sources familiar with the planning.

Planning discussions between the CIA and State Department have centered around what the US footprint inside Venezuela will look like, both in the short and long term, after the dramatic capture of former President Nicolás Maduro earlier this month.

While the State Department will serve as the primary, long-term US diplomatic presence in the country, the Trump administration will likely lean heavily on the CIA to initiate that re-entry process due to the ongoing political transition and unstable security situation in Venezuela post-Maduro, the sources added.

“State plants the flag but CIA is really the influence,” one source familiar with the planning process told CNN, noting the agency’s near-term objectives include setting the stage for diplomatic efforts – including relationship building with locals – and providing security.

In the short term, US officials may operate out of a CIA annex, prior to the opening of an official embassy, allowing them to start making informal contact with members of different factions of Venezuela’s government as well as opposition figures and target third parties who may be threats, the source said, drawing a parallel to the agency’s work in Ukraine.

“Setting up an annex is priority number one. Before diplomatic channels the annex can help set up liaison channels, that will be with the Venezuelan intelligence and that will allow conversations that diplomats cannot have,” said a former US government official who engaged with the Venezuelans.

The CIA declined to comment.

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The New York Times Is Trying To Rebrand Venezuela’s New Dictator as a Serious Thinker

The New York Times has depicted Nicolás Maduro’s successor—Venezuelan dictator Delcy Rodríguez—as a pragmatic technocrat, a market-friendly reformer, and a “cosmopolitan” who helped to stabilize the Venezuelan economy. The Times claims that Hugo Chávez’s socialist revolution has evolved into a “brutal capitalism” under Rodríguez’s purview. “A relative moderate,” Times reporter Anatoly Kurmanaev wrote, “Ms. Rodríguez is the architect of a market-friendly overhaul that has stabilized the Venezuelan economy after a prolonged collapse.”

In a series of articles bylined or co-authored by Kurmanaev and Simón Romero, Rodríguez is credited with heading “a market-friendly overhaul which had provided a semblance of economic stability.” One article states that “hyperinflation was halted and economic growth returned” under her watch. The Times’ reporter Pranav Baskar has underscored Rodríguez’s credentials and style, writing that she presents “herself as a cosmopolitan technocrat in a militaristic and male-dominated government.” Romero and Kurmanaev have contrasted her “technocratic, numbers-heavy communication” approach with Maduro’s “folksy style.”

The article that provoked the most outrage in Venezuela’s expat community was published last September and bylined by Times reporter Julie Turkewitz, who was granted “a rare visa for foreign journalists” and traveled to Caracas for an interview with Rodríguez. The resulting article featured a portrait of the now-dictator, stylishly dressed, looking introspective and calm, as she peered through a window, casting a gentle glow on her face.

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‘Nobody Else Has It’: Trump Confirms Mysterious US ‘Sonic Weapon’ Used During Capture of Venezuela’s Maduro

A ‘secret’ weapon was used in Caracas Op, Trump confirms.

On January 3, US special operators realized a jaw-dropping operation that neutralized air defense over the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, and invaded the heavily guarded presidential palace of Miraflores, extracting dictator Nicolas Maduro and his wife, taking them back to New York to stand trial.

In the raid, dozens of Cuban and Venezuelan guards were killed, while the US suffered no fatalities.

One of the most mysterious aspects of the operation, which US President Donald J. Trump has now confirmed, is that US special forces are said to have used a ‘secret sonic weapon’ during the daring capture of Maduro.

Daily Mail reported:

“The President on Tuesday night bragged that ‘nobody else’ has the weapon, while glorifying the capabilities of the US military.

[…] [NewsNation anchor Katie Pavlich] asked Trump whether Americans should be ‘afraid’ of these sonic devices.

‘Well yeah,’ Trump responded. He then added that only the US military has access to the sonic weapons by noting, ‘It’s something I don’t want to… nobody else has it’.”

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Venezuela calls for ‘symbolic’ social media action after Trump posts altered map on Truth Social

Venezuela’s government on Jan 20 called on citizens to post its official map on social media as a “symbolic action” after US President Donald Trump posted an altered image showing US flags over Venezuela, as well as Canada and Greenland.

The image, posted on Mr Trump’s Truth Social just before 1am Eastern Time (2pm in Singapore), shows an altered version of an August 2025 photo of European leaders in the Oval Office with Mr Trump, with the original map replaced with one showing US flags over Venezuela and much of North America.

The photo includes images of Britain’s Keir Starmer, Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, France’s Emmanuel Macron and EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen – even as Mr Trump himself and other world leaders travelled to Davos for the World Economic Forum.

“In light of this situation, the Venezuelan State calls on all citizens to take symbolic action in unity, with the aim of defending territorial integrity and countering misinformation,” Venezuela’s government said in a statement.

It urged its population to post on social media its official map of Venezuela, which includes Esequibo – some two-thirds of neighbouring Guyana that is claimed by Venezuela, though this is not recognised by any major country or by the UN.

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Three Venezuelan Illegal Immigrants Arrested in Minneapolis Ambush of ICE Agent 

Three men have been arrested in Minneapolis and are facing federal charges following what authorities described as an “attempted murder” of a federal immigration officer during a law enforcement operation on Wednesday night, according to the Department of Homeland Security, as reported by The New York Post.

DHS officials said the suspects — Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis, Alfredo Alejandro Ajorna, and Gabriel Alejandro Hernandez-Ledezma — are all illegal immigrants from Venezuela who entered the United States during the Biden administration.

All three men are currently being held in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Three men have been arrested in Minneapolis and are facing federal charges following what authorities described as an “attempted murder” of a federal immigration officer during a law enforcement operation on Wednesday night, according to the Department of Homeland Security, as reported by The New York Post.

DHS officials said the suspects — Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis, Alfredo Alejandro Ajorna, and Gabriel Alejandro Hernandez-Ledezma — are all illegal immigrants from Venezuela who entered the United States during the Biden administration.

All three men are currently being held in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“What we saw last night in Minneapolis was an attempted murder of federal law enforcement,” DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said in a statement.

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War Powers Resolution: The Senate Had One Job

On January 14, a “war powers resolution” went down to defeat in the US Senate on a 50-50 vote, with vice president JD Vance breaking the tie.

The resolution, which would have required US president Donald Trump to at least casually mention to Congress that he planned more military misadventures in Venezuela before, rather than after, launching such misadventures, was a half-hearted half-measure, but somehow only half of US Senators could bring themselves to go even that far.

Let’s go over the way things are supposed to work:

The US Constitution assigns the power to declare war to Congress, not to the president.

If the president attacks another country without such a declaration, it’s not a war, it’s just a crime — a “high crime” legally meriting and ethically requiring that president’s impeachment and removal from office.

Unfortunately, presidents have been getting away with such crimes on a routine basis since the end of World War 2. The list is too long to fit in an op-ed, but a few high points include Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

Those conflicts weren’t wars, at least so far as US law was concerned. They were criminal acts carried out by lawless presidents with the acquiescence — and often co-conspiracy — of Congress.

Toward the end of the Vietnam fiasco, Congress passed (and overrode Richard Nixon’s veto of) something called the War Powers Resolution of 1973.

Nixon’s veto message claimed that the Resolution included “unconstitutional restrictions” on his power to kill as many people as he pleased, when and how it pleased him to kill those people.

What it actually included was an unconstitutional — absent ratification by 3/4 of the states’ legislatures — repeal of the Constitution’s Article I, Section 8 assignment of the power to declare war solely and exclusively to Congress.

The Resolution supposedly gave the president wiggle room to engage in illegal military operations if he got congressional “authorization” or made up a “national emergency,” and as long as he subsequently bothered to tell Congress about it.

Why would Congress (a notoriously power-hungry body) try so hard to give up its power to declare war? Because if there’s anything a politician hates more than he or she loves power, it’s being held responsible for the consequences of exercising that power. By trying to give up its power, Congress thought it could also rid itself of culpability.

The Senate had one job to do. It wasn’t an especially hard job, it wouldn’t have had any great effect (even if it passed the House, Trump would have vetoed it), and it didn’t even meet the bare minimum constitutional standard.

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Pam Bondi Reveals Classified Leaker Behind Trump’s Venezuela Operation Was Pentagon IT Contractor

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi has unmasked the traitor behind the illegal leak of classified information about President Trump’s bold Venezuela operation.

Pam Bondi revealed Wednesday night that the individual responsible for leaking classified information about President Trump’s Venezuela operation was an IT contractor for the Department of War and he is now sitting in jail.

The disclosure came during an explosive interview with Sean Hannity, where Bondi confirmed that the Trump DOJ and FBI are aggressively pursuing those who leak classified military intelligence and the media figures who obtain and publish it.

As previously reported by The Gateway Pundit, the FBI executed a search warrant at the Alexandria, Virginia, home of a Washington Post reporter who obtained and reported on classified and illegally leaked Pentagon material.

The reporter, Hannah Natanson, is not the subject of the investigation, but federal agents seized:

  • Her cell phone
  • Two laptops (one personal, one work-issued)
  • A Garmin watch

According to the Washington Post, Natanson was inside her home at the time the warrant was executed.

The search was conducted at the request of the Department of War, according to Bondi.

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US gets first $500 million Venezuelan oil deal, holding some proceeds in Qatar

The Trump administration’s first sale of Venezuelan oil is valued at $500 million, an administration official told Semafor.

The sale marks an initial milestone in the administration’s stewardship of Venezuela after the US ouster of its former leader, Nicolás Maduro, 11 days ago. President Donald Trump has indicated that the US would effectively run Venezuela for an indeterminable amount of time and take control of up to 50 million barrels of its oil — marketing and selling it while distributing the proceeds back to Venezuela in an arrangement with little precedent.

Trump signed an executive order on Friday that provided some details on how the US plans to block courts or creditors from tapping any revenue from those oil sales. Venezuela owes international bondholders, oil companies and others as much as $170 billion — one reason why US firms have been reluctant to help rebuild the country’s infrastructure.

Trump told ConocoPhillips CEO Ryan Lance last week that the US is “not going to look at what people lost in the past, because that was their fault.”

The administration official told Semafor that the interim leadership in Venezuela, led by former Maduro No. 2 Delcy Rodríguez, has “fully cooperated” since the US-Venezuelan energy deal was announced last week, adding that the US has “leverage” through sanctions and oil sales.

Revenue from the oil sales is currently being held in bank accounts controlled by the US government, as indicated in Friday’s order, according to the administration official. The main account, according to a second senior administration official, is located in Qatar.

The second official described Qatar as a neutral location where money can flow freely with US approval and without risk of seizure. Trump’s order noted that at least some of the revenue would be held in US Treasury accounts.

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Senate GOP blocks vote to limit President Trump’s authority on Venezuela

Senate Republicans voted Wednesday to dismiss a war powers resolution that would have limited President Donald Trump’s ability to carry out further military action against Venezuela, with two GOP senators reversing their earlier support for the measure.

Vice President JD Vance cast the tie-breaking vote to defeat a Democratic-backed motion after the Senate split 50-50 on a Republican effort to dismiss the resolution.

The outcome followed five Republican senators who originally joined Democrats to advance the legislation last week. Two of those Republicans, Sens. Josh Hawley of Missouri and Todd Young of Indiana, ultimately withdrew their support.

Democrats forced the debate after U.S. forces captured Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro in a surprise nighttime raid earlier this month.

“Here we have one of the most successful attacks ever and they find a way to be against it. It’s pretty amazing. And it’s a shame,” President Trump said Tuesday during a speech in Michigan.

President Trump also criticized several Republicans who maintained their support for the resolution, blasting Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine. Even if the resolution had passed the Senate, it stood little chance of becoming law because it would have required President Trump’s signature.

Lawmakers also cited the release of a heavily redacted 22-page Justice Department memo outlining the legal basis for the operation that captured Maduro. The memo states that the administration currently has no plans for expanded military action.

“We were assured that there is no contingency plan to engage in any substantial and sustained operation that would amount to a constitutional war,” the memo said, signed by Assistant Attorney General Elliot Gaiser.

The administration has justified its actions by citing wartime authorities under the global war on terror, after designating drug cartels as terrorist organizations. It has also characterized Maduro’s capture as a law enforcement operation tied to longstanding U.S. criminal charges.

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Did A Mysterious “Sonic Weapon” Really Aid Delta Force In Capturing Maduro?

viral and as-yet totally unsubstantiated claim that U.S. forces used a mysterious “sonic weapon” that left security forces bleeding and stunned during the recent operation to capture Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro has been getting a ton of attention. The allegation – amplified, but not expressly confirmed by the White House – does add to years now of persistent rumors of weapons very loosely similar to this description being in use globally, with separate news on that front having broken just today. When it comes to the United States, this has been further fueled by decades of known work on directed energy weapons, including ones intended to produce novel auditory and less-than-lethal effects.

The sonic weapon claim looks to originate with a video posted on TikTok on January 9 by an individual who goes by Varela News (and who uses the handle @franklinvarela09). The Spanish-language clip is a purported interview with a member of the Venezuelan security forces who was involved in the response to the U.S. operation in Caracas just over a week ago. The contents of the clip gained wider traction online after Mike Netter shared an English transcription in a post on X that same day. Netter is a political commentator and advocate who describes himself as the “main proponent” of the failed 2021 effort to recall California Governor Gavin Newsom. He is now Vice Chair of an organization called Rebuild California and hosts a radio show on KABC, a Cumulus Media station that broadcasts in the Greater Los Angeles area.

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