NEW YORK\/MIAMI\/WASHINGTON: Trump administration officials had been in discussions with Venezuela\u2019s hard-line interior minister Diosdado Cabello months before the US operation to seize President Nicolas Maduro, and have been in communication with him since then, according to multiple people familiar with the matter.<\/p>\n
The officials warned Cabello, 62, against using the security services or militant \u200bruling-party supporters he oversees to target the country\u2019s opposition, four sources said. That security apparatus, which includes the intelligence services, police and the armed forces, remains largely intact after the January 3 US raid.<\/p>\n
Cabello is named in the same US drug-trafficking indictment that the Trump administration used as justification to arrest Maduro, but was not taken as part of the operation.<\/p>\n
The communication with Cabello, which has also touched on sanctions the US has imposed on him and the indictment he faces, dates back to the early days of the current Trump administration and continued in the weeks just prior to the US ouster of Maduro, two sources familiar with the discussions said. The administration has also been in touch with Cabello since Maduro\u2019s ouster, four of the people said.<\/p>\n
The communications, which have not been previously reported, are critical to the Trump administration\u2019s efforts to control the situation inside Venezuela. If Cabello decides to unleash the forces that he controls, it \u200ccould foment the kind \u200cof chaos that Trump wants to avoid and threaten interim President Delcy Rodriguez\u2019s grip on power, according \u200cto \u2060a source \u200bbriefed on \u200cUS concerns.<\/p>\n
It is not clear if the Trump administration\u2019s discussions with Cabello extended to questions about the future governance of Venezuela. Also unclear is whether Cabello has heeded the US warnings. He has publicly pledged unity with Rodriguez, whom Trump has so far praised.<\/p>\n
While Rodriguez has been seen by the US as the linchpin for US President Donald Trump\u2019s strategy for post-Maduro Venezuela, Cabello is widely believed to have the power to keep those plans on track or upend them.<\/p>\n
The Venezuelan minister has been in contact with the Trump administration both directly and via intermediaries, one person familiar with the conversations said.<\/p>\n
All of the sources were granted anonymity to speak freely about sensitive internal government communications with Cabello.<\/p>\n
The White House and the government of Venezuela did not immediately respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n
CABELLO HAS BEEN MADURO LOYALIST<\/p>\n
Cabello has long been seen \u2060as Venezuela\u2019s second most powerful figure. A close aide of late former President Hugo Chavez, Maduro\u2019s mentor, he went on to become a long-time Maduro loyalist, feared as his main enforcer of repression. Rodriguez and Cabello have \u200cboth operated at the heart of the government, legislature and ruling socialist party for years, but \u200dhave never been considered close allies of each other.<\/p>\n
A former military officer, \u200dCabello has exerted influence over the country\u2019s military and civilian counterintelligence agencies, which conduct widespread domestic espionage. He has also been closely associated with pro-government militias, notably \u200dthe colectivos, groups of motorcycle-riding armed civilians who have been deployed to attack protesters.<\/p>\n
Cabello is one of a handful of Maduro loyalists Washington has relied on as temporary rulers to maintain stability while it accesses the OPEC nation\u2019s oil reserves during an unspecified transition period.<\/p>\n
But US officials are concerned that Cabello \u2014 given his record of repression and a history of rivalry with Rodriguez \u2014 could play the spoiler, according to a source briefed on the administration\u2019s thinking.<\/p>\n
Rodriguez has been working to consolidate her own power, installing loyalists in key positions \u200bto protect herself from internal threats while meeting US demands to boost oil production, Reuters interviews with sources in Venezuela have shown.<\/p>\n
Elliott Abrams, who served as Trump\u2019s special representative on Venezuela in his first term, said many Venezuelans would expect Cabello to be removed \u2060at some point if a democratic transition is to advance.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf and when he goes, Venezuelans will know that the regime has really begun to change,\u201d said Abrams, now at the Council on Foreign Relations think tank.<\/p>\n
US SANCTIONS AND INDICTMENT<\/p>\n
Cabello has long been under US sanctions for alleged drug trafficking.<\/p>\n
In 2020, the US issued a $10 million bounty for Cabello and indicted him as a key figure in the \u201cCartel de los Soles,\u201d a group the US has said is a Venezuelan drug-trafficking network led by members of the country\u2019s government.<\/p>\n
The US has since raised the award to $25 million. Cabello has publicly denied any links to drug trafficking.<\/p>\n
In the hours after Maduro\u2019s ouster, some analysts and politicians in Washington questioned why the US didn\u2019t also grab Cabello \u2014 listed second in the Department of Justice indictment of Maduro.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know that just Diosdado is probably worse than Maduro and worse than Delcy,\u201d Republican US Representative Maria Elvira Salazar said in an interview with CBS\u2019s \u201cFace the Nation\u201d on January 11.<\/p>\n
In the days following, Cabello denounced American intervention in the country, saying in a speech that \u201cVenezuela will not surrender.\u201d<\/p>\n
But media reports of residents being searched at checkpoints \u2014 sometimes by uniformed members of the security forces and sometimes by people in plain clothes \u2014 have become less frequent in recent days.<\/p>\n
And both Trump and the Venezuelan government have said many detainees who are considered \u200cby the opposition and rights groups to be political prisoners will be released.<\/p>\n
The government has said that Cabello, in his role as interior minister, is overseeing that effort. Rights groups say the liberations are proceeding extremely slowly and hundreds remain unjustly detained.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NEW YORK\/MIAMI\/WASHINGTON: Trump administration officials had been in discussions with Venezuela\u2019s hard-line interior minister Diosdado Cabello months before the US operation to seize President Nicolas Maduro, and have been in communication with him since then, according to multiple people familiar with the matter. The officials warned Cabello, 62, against using the security services or militant […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":526121,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-526106","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n