Trump-Era DOJ Probes Unfounded Venezuela Election Claims

Federal investigators, operating under the Trump administration’s Justice Department, have been actively interviewing individuals promoting baseless assertions that Venezuela orchestrated a scheme to rig the 2020 presidential election against Donald Trump. This revelation, brought to light by sources close to the matter, underscores ongoing efforts to validate disproven narratives surrounding the election outcome.

According to four separate sources, two key proponents of this elaborate conspiracy theory have held multiple briefings with W. Stephen Muldrow, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Puerto Rico. During these sessions, they reportedly shared purported witnesses and documents with federal officials. Muldrow, when contacted for comment, declined to address the specifics of these meetings.

Parallel Investigations Emerge

Beyond the discussions in Puerto Rico, individuals advancing the Venezuelan interference narrative have also been questioned by federal investigators assigned to a specialized task force in Tampa, Florida. This task force is primarily focused on investigating Venezuelan drug trafficking and money laundering operations, according to another four sources. The U.S. Attorney’s office in Tampa also declined to comment on the nature of these interviews.

The existence of such an investigation, initiated during the Trump presidency, highlights how the Justice Department became a critical instrument in the administration’s broader campaign to discredit the legitimate results of the 2020 election. Critics suggest these probes could also inadvertently bolster the administration’s rationale for potential military action against Venezuela, a nation frequently targeted by Trump’s foreign policy rhetoric.

The Heart of the Conspiracy

The “Stop the Steal” movement, which gained significant traction following the 2020 election, was fueled by a range of unsubstantiated claims, including allegations of deceased voters, fraudulent ballots, and clandestine computer servers in Germany. However, the purported involvement of Venezuela consistently remained a central pillar of this movement. The theory posited that electronic voting systems across the United States were secretly controlled by the impoverished Venezuelan regime, under the direct influence of both then-President Nicolás Maduro and his late predecessor, Hugo Chávez.

This claim, widely regarded as bizarre and lacking any credible evidence, was definitively debunked by a Delaware judge in 2023. The court ruling explicitly declared the theory false. Major media outlets, including Fox News, Newsmax, and OAN, later faced substantial financial repercussions, collectively paying hundreds of millions of dollars in defamation settlements for promoting these unfounded allegations.

At its core, the conspiracy asserted that voting technology companies—specifically Smartmatic, which held the contract for electronic voting machines in Los Angeles County, and Dominion Voting Systems, responsible for elections in numerous other regions—were either established or unduly influenced by Venezuela to manipulate election results. The renewed attention to these claims appears to intertwine two persistent themes: Donald Trump’s consistent complaints of a “rigged election” and his administration’s antagonistic stance toward Venezuela.

Source: The Guardian