Drug Dealer Trafficker
belated?
see narco-traffic cartel
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AN 3 26
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has shared a 20-year relationship with a man that the government alleges is a foreign agent for Venezuela. It turns out, that man also has very close ties to several people in President Donald Trump's orbit
The sprawling case centers on a $50 million Venezuelan lobbying scheme allegedly orchestrated by Rep. David Rivera (R-Fla.), convicted cocaine trafficker Hugo Perera, and sanctioned media mogul Raúl Gorrín on behalf of Nicolás Maduro’s regime, a Tuesday report from The Lever said.
Court documents also reveal connections to White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, former Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway, Rep. Pete Sessions (R‑Texas), oil executive Harry Sargeant (now advising Trump on Venezuela policy), Iran‑Contra figure Otto Reich, and even Ghislaine Maxwell’s lawyer.
It all began in 2017, when the lobbying company Ballard Partners, which Wiles co-led at the time, was connected to Rivera through Gorrín and Perera. In fact, one of Rivera's lawyers' arguments is that if his associations make him a foreign agent, then Wiles should be considered one too. Ballard's "work for Gorrín appears to have been extensive," the report said and Wiles has been asked to testify. There are about 400 pages of documents connecting Wiles' firm to the men. The documents include numerous emails.
The court filings allege that Gorrín helped facilitate the foreign-agent relationship and served as a go-between for the Venezuelan government. He was involved in several meetings that Rivera set up, including those with Rubio. At one point, Rivera tried to use Gorrín's private jet for the meetings with Conway.
"Gorrín, who was sanctioned by the U.S. government in 2019 for his purported involvement in foreign bribes and money laundering, was reportedly paid handsomely for his work," the report noted. That same year, Attorney General Pam Bondi was also working at Ballard.
Emails exchanged between Wiles and Gorrín also included lobbyist Otto Reich, known for his work on weapons sales during the Ronald Reagan administration. It became known as the Iran-Contra scandal because the U.S. secretly funneled the weapons to Iran through the Contras, a Nicaraguan rebel group. There was an arms embargo at the time and Reich ran the State Department's Office of Public Diplomacy for Latin America and the Caribbean, which helped coordinate everything.
Oil executive Harry Sargeant was also among the email discussions. He's currently working with Trump on stabilizing Venezuela after Trump took out Maduro.
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politico 1 25
Trump on Tuesday granted a pardon to Ross William Ulbricht, the imprisoned creator of a dark web marketplace for drugs and other illicit products whose case had become a cause célèbre for libertarians and crypto enthusiasts.
Trump explicitly tied his decision to free Ulbricht, who is serving a life sentence, to the support his campaign drew from people who viewed the Silk Road founder as a pioneer and victim of government persecution.
“I just called the mother of Ross William Ulbricht to let her know that in honor of her and the Libertarian Movement, which supported me so strongly, it was my pleasure to have just signed a full and unconditional pardon of her son,” the president wrote on Truth Social.
He also compared Ulbricht’s treatment by authorities to the investigations that have dogged him in recent years.
“The scum that worked to convict him were some of the same lunatics who were involved in the modern day weaponization of government against me,” he said.
In 2015, Ulbricht, who called himself the Dread Pirate Roberts, was sentenced in Manhattan federal court to life in prison for owning and operating Silk Road, the dark web marketplace for buying and selling drugs and other illegal goods. It gained a following among crypto enthusiasts and libertarians in part for being an early user of Bitcoin and challenging governmental authority.
Silk Road had thousands of listings for over 200 million dollars worth of narcotics, which were sold and distributed across more than 10 different countries.
Trump previously said he would commute Ulbricht’s sentence “on Day One” at the Libertarian National Convention in 2024. It came a day after he granted clemency to nearly 1,600 people charged or convicted for storming the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
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