Venezuela’s oil money, Washington’s power brokers.
A convicted foreign agent who was Marco Rubio’s closest political ally. A sanctioned oligarch’s TV network paying a Trump-tied lobbying firm. And now, after a US military operation toppled Caracas, a claim that Washington is sitting on roughly $11 billion of Venezuelan oil revenue it calls, in the same breath, both a US “asset” and Venezuela’s property held “in custody.”
The documented network is graded FACT: the conviction, the relationships, the corporate guilty plea, mapped by The Lever and the DOJ. The newer, sharper claim — that the seizure of Venezuela’s oil money is effectively theft — comes from SOME SMOKE: the damning Bessent quote is now verified (he did call it a US “asset” and refused Congress a total), but the executive-order text and the $11 billion total we have not yet confirmed against the primary record — so we raise the “theft” conclusion as questions Congress should answer, not as our finding.
What this page argues
Two stories about the same commodity — Venezuelan oil money — and the Washington figures who keep turning up around it. The first is documented and settled. The second is a serious allegation we are still verifying, and we mark the line between them clearly.
The documented part. David Rivera — Marco Rubio’s decades-long closest ally, the man the press dubbed the other half of “Batman and Robin” in Florida politics — was convicted in a Miami federal court over a secret $50 million campaign to lobby the first Trump administration on behalf of the Maduro government, paid through the parent company of the US refiner CITGO. Rubio, now Secretary of State, testified at the trial. The Lever mapped the wider network the money moved through: the sanctioned Venezuelan oligarch Raúl Gorrín and his Globovisión network; Ballard Partners, the Trump-tied lobbying firm; and Susie Wiles, now Trump’s White House chief of staff and a former Ballard partner. And Trafigura — the Swiss trading house now central to selling Venezuela’s oil — pleaded guilty in 2024 to bribing officials at Brazil’s state oil company.
The part we’re verifying. The investigator theleahfiles argues that, since a US operation toppled the Maduro government, Washington has taken in roughly $11 billion more Venezuelan oil revenue than normal and cannot account for about $7.5 billion of it. Her sharpest point is a contradiction: she reports that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Congress the money is “one of the largest assets ever to go on the US balance sheet,” while the January 9 executive order governing the fund calls it “property of the Government of Venezuela” held “solely in a custodial” capacity — you cannot, she writes, hold another country’s money in custody and book it as your asset. That is a devastating frame if both quotes hold up. We have not yet confirmed the testimony or the order against the primary record, so we grade that thesis SOME SMOKE and pose it as questions, rather than adopt it.
What ties the two halves together is the throughline of the whole Venezuela story we’ve been tracing: a country’s oil is the prize, and a familiar cast — lobbyists, sanctioned oligarchs, bribery-convicted traders, and now, allegedly, the US Treasury itself — keeps finding its way to the money. It runs from the sanctions that strangled the country to the operation that toppled its government to the spoils being divided now.
We are not asserting, as our own verified finding, that the United States is stealing $11 billion from Venezuela. That claim — and the Bessent quote and executive-order language it rests on — comes from theleahfiles, a strong-track-record source, but we have not yet checked the hearing transcript or the order text ourselves. They are public records; we flag them for verification and pose the contradiction as a question.
We are not asserting guilt beyond the record for the people named around this money. Alejandro Betancourt has never been charged and denies wrongdoing; Raúl Gorrín’s status is the sanctions and charges the US government has actually brought; and being a bribery-convicted company (Trafigura) or a lobbyist in the network is not the same as the specific current allegations. We keep “convicted,” “charged,” “sanctioned,” and “alleged” distinct.
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Venezuela's oil money, Washington's power brokers.
A convicted foreign agent who was Rubio's closest ally. A sanctioned oligarch's network paying a Trump-tied lobby firm. And a claim that the US is sitting on ~$11B of Venezuelan oil revenue it calls both a US 'asset' and Venezuela's property 'in custody.'
Three things that are on the record.
Marco Rubio's closest political ally was convicted of secretly lobbying for the Maduro government.
FACTDavid Rivera — a former Republican congressman from Miami and, for two decades, Marco Rubio's closest political ally (the press called them 'Batman and Robin'; Rivera whipped the votes that made Rubio Florida House Speaker and helped him pick out his wife's engagement ring) — was convicted in Miami federal court of acting as an unregistered foreign agent. The case centered on a secret $50 million campaign to lobby the first Trump administration to normalize relations with Nicolás Maduro's government, paid through the parent company of the US refiner CITGO (a subsidiary of Venezuela's state oil company). His associate Esther Nuhfer was convicted alongside him. Rubio — now Secretary of State, whose department signs off on Venezuela policy — testified at the trial, saying Rivera never disclosed the Citgo contract.
- U.S. Department of Justice (SDFL) — 'Former U.S. Congressman and Lobbyist Convicted of Acting as Unregistered Agents [for] Venezuela'
- Associated Press — ex-Rep. David Rivera convicted over the secret $50M Venezuela lobbying campaign; Rubio's ties
- The Lever — 'The Miami Trial Exposing Foreign Influence in Trumpland' (the Rubio-Rivera history and the network)
The oil money moved through a network that runs into Trump's inner circle.
FACTThe Lever mapped how Venezuelan oil money moved through Washington power brokers. The chain runs from PDVSA (Venezuela's state oil company) and its US refiner CITGO, through Rivera's $50 million lobbying contract, to the sanctioned Venezuelan oligarch Raúl Gorrín — under US indictment for corruption and the owner of the Globovisión media network — whose company is reported to have paid a $450,000 lobbying contract to Ballard Partners, the Washington firm tied to Trump's political operation. Susie Wiles, now Trump's White House chief of staff, is a former Ballard partner. Also in the network: former Rep. Pete Sessions (who met on Venezuela sanctions), oil executive Harry Sargeant (advising Trump on Venezuela), and Miami developer Hugo Perera (a witness). We report the network as The Lever documented it; the specific kickback figures on the chart are labeled 'alleged.'
Trafigura, the Swiss trader now central to Venezuela's oil sales, is a bribery-convicted company.
FACTTrafigura Beheer B.V., one of the world's largest commodity traders and — per theleahfiles' reporting — now a key marketer of the Venezuelan oil the US controls, pleaded guilty on March 28, 2024 in US federal court to conspiring to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, for bribing officials at Brazil's state oil company Petrobras between 2003 and 2014. It agreed to pay over $126 million (an ~$80.5M criminal fine plus ~$46.5M forfeiture). That a felony-convicted foreign-bribery firm, less than two years past its plea, is handling another country's seized oil revenue is the kind of detail this file exists to surface — the conviction is documented FACT; the current no-bid role is drawn from theleahfiles' account and the reporting around it.
The $11 billion question — theleahfiles’ allegation, flagged for verification.
Is the US booking Venezuela's oil revenue as its own 'asset' while its own order calls it Venezuela's property held in custody?
SOME SMOKEThis is the sharp allegation from theleahfiles, and we present it as hers, pending our own check of the primary record. She reports that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Congress the Venezuelan oil money is 'one of the largest assets ever to go on the US balance sheet' — while the January 9, 2026 executive order governing the fund calls the money 'property of the Government of Venezuela,' held by the US 'solely in a custodial and governmental capacity.' Her point: you cannot hold another country's money in custody and call it your asset — 'that is the difference between a bank and a thief.' She adds a numbers analysis from Treasury's public Daily Treasury Statement: the State Department account that holds the fund took in about $14.5 billion since January against a normal year of $3.4 billion — roughly $11 billion more than usual — with about $3.5 billion documented going back to Venezuela, leaving ~$7.5 billion unaccounted for. One piece of this we HAVE now seen in the primary document: the Daily Treasury Statement for February 5, 2026 shows the 'Dept of State (DOS)' deposit line taking in $514 million in a single day (month-to-date $593 million) — a real, roughly ten-fold anomaly for a line whose prior two-year daily high she puts at $54 million. That single-day spike is verified against the primary record. But two caveats hold the grade at SOME SMOKE: the statement labels the line only 'Dept of State,' so identifying that $514 million specifically as Venezuelan oil revenue is her (well-timed) inference, not a label on the document; and the aggregate $14.5B/$11B/$7.5B figures require the full run of daily statements plus her method, which we have not reproduced. And the Bessent quote is now verified: multiple outlets (RawStory, Portside, Washington Signal) confirm that, in a House hearing exchange with Rep. Sean Casten, he called the seized Venezuelan oil money 'one of the largest assets to ever go on the U.S. balance sheet' and declined to give Congress a total — exactly as reported. What still isn't independently confirmed is the executive-order text (the other half of the 'asset vs. custody' contradiction) and the aggregate $11 billion / $7.5 billion figures. So: the Bessent 'asset' characterization and his refusal to account to Congress are FACT; the single-day Treasury spike is FACT; the Venezuela attribution of that spike, the $11 billion total, and the EO-vs-testimony contradiction remain her analysis, posed as questions — not yet our finding.
- theleahfiles (X thread) — the Bessent testimony, the Jan 9 executive-order language, and the Daily Treasury Statement analysis (the source allegation; the quotes and aggregate figures not independently verified here)
- U.S. Treasury — Daily Treasury Statement, February 5, 2026 (primary document, as provided): the 'Dept of State (DOS)' deposit line at $514M for the day, $593M month-to-date — the single-day spike we can confirm
- RawStory — Bessent tells the House hearing the seized Venezuelan oil money is 'one of the largest assets to ever go on the U.S. balance sheet' (the exchange with Rep. Sean Casten) — the Bessent quote, now verified
- Washington Signal — Bessent did not provide a total accounting of the Venezuelan oil proceeds at the House hearing
- Black Book Audit — Sovereignty for Sale: the US operation that toppled Maduro (Operation Absolute Resolve) and the 'Freedom City' aftermath
The intermediaries handed the oil have criminal and corruption records — with the details we haven't yet verified flagged as such.
SOME SMOKEtheleahfiles reports that the seized oil is being marketed by Trafigura (whose 2024 bribery guilty plea we confirm above) and Vitol (which, per the well-known record, entered a ~$135 million deferred-prosecution agreement in 2020 over bribery in Brazil, Ecuador and Mexico — a case we cite from memory of the DOJ action and will attach a primary link to on verification), and that the Pentagon took a 35% stake alongside Venezuelan businessman Alejandro Betancourt — whose firm Derwick Associates won no-bid Chávez-era power contracts and whom Miami prosecutors named as an unindicted co-conspirator in a $1.2 billion PDVSA money-laundering case (he hired Rudy Giuliani to lobby DOJ about it in 2019, has never been charged, and denies wrongdoing; Spain reportedly reopened its case in June). We carry these as theleahfiles' account: the Trafigura plea is FACT; the Vitol DPA is well documented but we owe you our own citation; the Betancourt/Pentagon-stake claims are the newest and least independently confirmed, so they are SOME SMOKE and attributed, not asserted.
- theleahfiles (X thread) — the Vitol, Betancourt/Derwick, and Pentagon-stake claims (attributed; the newest items pending our own primary verification)
- U.S. Department of Justice — Trafigura guilty plea (the one intermediary detail we have independently confirmed)
The line between what’s proven and what’s alleged — drawn on purpose.
- Proven (FACT): Rivera’s conviction and the Rubio relationship; the lobbying network as The Lever documented it; Trafigura’s 2024 foreign-bribery guilty plea.
- Now verified (moved up): the Bessent quote — multiple outlets confirm he called the seized Venezuelan oil money “one of the largest assets to ever go on the U.S. balance sheet” and refused Congress a total (the exchange with Rep. Casten); and the February 5, 2026 Daily Treasury Statement, which confirms the $514 million single-day “Dept of State” deposit (though the statement doesn’t label it “Venezuela,” so that attribution stays an inference).
- Still pending our check (SOME SMOKE): the January 9 executive-order text (the other half of the “asset vs. custody” contradiction) and the aggregate $11 billion / $7.5 billion figures — these need the order itself and the full run of daily statements. Verifying them is the next step.
- The government’s side: the executive order’s own “custodial” language could cut against the theft claim — if the money is genuinely being held and returned (theleahfiles herself notes ~$3.5 billion reportedly went back), that is custody, not theft. The unanswered questions are the total, the ~$7.5 billion gap, and the still-unproduced written agreement Bessent promised Congress. That is why this is posed as questions.
- Named people, kept precise: Betancourt is uncharged and denies wrongdoing; we say so. We do not upgrade “unindicted co-conspirator” or “alleged kickbacks” into guilt.
“To the victor belong the spoils” — but the order says it isn’t ours.
Whatever the final accounting shows, the structure is worth seeing whole. The United States strangled Venezuela’s economy for years, then removed its government by force, and is now in control of the revenue from the country’s single greatest asset — its oil. The people positioned around that revenue are not neutral custodians chosen for probity: a convicted foreign-bribery trader, a businessman named in a billion-dollar laundering case, a lobbying network that reaches the White House chief of staff, and a Secretary of State whose closest friend was just convicted of secretly working for the same country’s prior government.
The President says “to the victor belong the spoils.” The executive order says the money belongs to Venezuela and is only being held. Those two statements cannot both be the operating principle, and Congress is entitled to know which one is — down to the dollar. That is the honest ask here, and it does not require us to have proven the theft: it requires the government to produce the total, the agreement, and the accounting it has so far declined to give.
Questions worth taking seriously
Why publish the $11 billion claim at all if you haven't verified it?
Couldn't the 'custodial' language mean it's not theft?
Is naming Betancourt and Gorrín fair if they haven't been convicted?
If you are named on this page
If you are named on this page, or are a party materially affected by the claims made here, and you wish to respond, correct the record, or add context, use the Contact page. Responses are published verbatim alongside the original claim, with the sender identified and the date of receipt. The channel stays open for the life of the page.
This site aggregates and grades a record that other outlets and primary sources have already put on the record. Every FACT-graded claim above is sourced to court filings, government reports, sworn whistleblower disclosures, published investigative journalism, or named-source statements. The citations are the accountability mechanism; this section is how you get on the record too.
What’s confirmed, and what’s flagged for verification.
Every claim on this page grades to one of FACT · PROBABLY TRUE · SOME SMOKE · PURE SPECULATION · FALSE / MISLEADING. The Rivera conviction, the Rubio relationship, the lobbying network, and the Trafigura guilty plea are graded FACT from the DOJ and The Lever. The $11 billion “asset vs. custody” thesis and the intermediary details are graded SOME SMOKE, attributed to theleahfiles, and flagged as not yet verified against the hearing transcript, the executive order, or the Treasury statement.
- U.S. DOJ (SDFL) — David Rivera & Esther Nuhfer convicted of acting as unregistered agents for Venezuela
- Associated Press — ex-Rep. David Rivera convicted over the secret $50M Venezuela lobbying campaign
- The Lever — “The Miami Trial Exposing Foreign Influence in Trumpland” (the Rubio-Rivera history and the lobbying-network map)
- U.S. DOJ — Trafigura pleads guilty to foreign bribery (March 28, 2024; >$126M)
- theleahfiles (X thread) — the Bessent testimony quote, the January 9 executive-order language, the Daily Treasury Statement analysis (~$11B / ~$7.5B unaccounted), and the Vitol / Betancourt / Pentagon-stake claims. Source allegation; the load-bearing quotes and figures are not independently verified on this page and are flagged for confirmation against the primary record.
Full method: Methodology. Home hub: Self-Dealing.
Last updated September 17, 2026. The David Rivera FARA conviction and the Rubio relationship, the Venezuelan-oil lobbying network as reported by The Lever, and Trafigura’s 2024 foreign-bribery guilty plea are graded FACT. The ~$11 billion “asset vs. custody” thesis — including the Scott Bessent testimony quote, the January 9, 2026 executive-order language, the Daily Treasury Statement figures, and the Vitol / Betancourt / Pentagon-stake claims — is attributed to theleahfiles, graded SOME SMOKE, and explicitly NOT yet verified against the hearing transcript, the order text, or the Treasury record; it is raised as questions, not asserted. Named individuals are described only at the level the record supports (Betancourt is uncharged and denies wrongdoing). If a link 404s or a detail is wrong, tell us and we will fix it publicly — and we will update the grades as we verify.