Ex-Miami US Rep. David Rivera arrested in Venezuela probe
Source: Associated Press
By JOSHUA GOODMAN and TERRY SPENCER
39 minutes ago
Joshua Goodman
Latin America correspondent based in Miami
APJoshGoodman
jgoodman@ap.org
WASHINGTON (AP) — A former Miami congressman who signed a $50 million consulting contract with Venezuela’s socialist government was arrested Monday on charges of money laundering and representing a foreign government without registering.
David Rivera, a Republican who has been marred by scandals stretching back to his days in Congress from 2011 to 2013, was arrested at Atlanta’s airport, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Miami.
The eight-count indictment alleges Rivera at the start of the Trump administration was part of a conspiracy to lobby on behalf of Venezuela to lower tensions with the U.S., resolve a legal dispute with a U.S. oil company and end U.S. sanctions against the South American nation — all without registering as a foreign agent.
The indictment cites meetings in Washington, New York and Dallas that Rivera either attended or tried to set up for allies of President Nicolas Maduro with U.S. lawmakers and a top aide to former President Donald Trump. To hide the sensitive nature of his work, prosecutors allege Rivera referred to Maduro in chat messages as the “bus driver,” a congressman as “Sombrero” and millions of dollars as “melons.”
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/venezuela-miami-arrests-criminal-investigations-david-rivera-a81683364212d7c86068839290bd8630
David Rivera
MARCH 28, 2022 5:35 AM
Ex-Congressman David Rivera loses ‘last-ditch’ move to avoid $456,000 campaign fine
By Francisco Alvarado, FloridaBulldog.org
In a severe rebuke of David Rivera, U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke rejected the former Miami Republican congressman’s “last-ditch effort” to dodge a $456,000 judgment against him tied to his decade-old federal elections campaign violations.
On March 24, roughly a year after ruling in favor of the Federal Elections Commission, Cooke denied Rivera’s motion to dismiss the elections watchdog agency’s lawsuit against him on the grounds that he never received mail notices he was going to be sued, and that a five-year statute of limitations had expired when the complaint was filed on July 14, 2017.
“It is disingenuous and smacks of hypocrisy that Defendant David Rivera – a former U.S. Congressman – now insists that the Court conveniently ignore his multiple discrete violations of a federal law in favor of his strained reading of a statute of limitations and his interpretation of the FEC’s claims against him,” Cooke wrote in her denial order. “Defendant’s argument also lacks legal support.”
Cooke also described Rivera’s motion, filed on March 31, 2021, as “what appears to be a last-ditch effort to avoid a final judgment being entered against him.” The judge admonished Rivera for “his attempts to subvert justice and avoid the repercussions of his unlawful acts throughout the underlying FEC administrative proceeding and the proceedings before this court.”
The FEC case is now administratively closed and Rivera is on the hook for the six-figure judgment – which is among the top 15 largest civil penalties ever imposed by the FEC.
More:
https://www.floridabulldog.org/2022/03/ex-congressman-david-rivera-loses-last-ditch-move-to-avoid-huge-campaign-fine/
= new reply since forum marked as read
Maybe it's just me, but, I don't think so.
Fyi, I have family and friends who live in Venezuela. They're not supporters of Nazis like Juan Guaido.
I can post lots of GOPee produced "proof" that the GOPee isn't a fascist party, but that would be pretty transparent.
Same for the foreign backed Guaido insurrectionist coalition. Technically, their coalition of parties aren't officially fascists - it's just that they are.
I have personally seen the flags at their rallies, and heard the racist and antisemitic rally calls from Guaido's henchmen/women.
Besides, what to call the loser of the elections who declares themselves the winner, or demand to be installed? What to call the party that refuses to condemn the fascists/Nazis in their midst?
smh
They couldn't get enough of him, and the US corporate news media never found any reason to raise holy hell about his genocide of the Ache Native Paraguayan people, his torture of them, or sending survivors into slavery. Noooop. No problem there, apparently. He managed to squash elections, opponents, dissent, you name it, and Washington loved it some Stroessner.
A few cherry picked passages from Stroessner's Wikipedia:
He officially assumed the presidency on 15 August 1954, quickly suspended constitutional and civil rights, and began a period of harsh repression with the support of the army and the military police (which also served as a secret or political police) against anyone who opposed his authoritarian rule. Even when opposition parties were legalized in 1962, they were barely tolerated, and the repression continued. On 25 August 1967, he introduced a new constitution enabling him to re-elect himself; in 1977 he modified that constitution to permit himself to be re-elected indefinitely. He was fraudulently re-elected seven times from 1958 until 1988; approximately six months after the 1988 general election, he was overthrown in the coup d'état of 2 and 3 February 1989, led by his most trusted confidant, Major General Andrés Rodríguez Pedotti, with the support of the army.
. . .
As leader of the Colorado Party, Stroessner exercised nearly complete control over the nation's political scene. Although opposition parties were nominally permitted after 1962 (the Colorado Party had been the only legal party in the country since 1947), Paraguay remained for all intents and purposes a one-party state. Elections were so heavily rigged in favor of the Colorados that the opposition had no realistic chance of winning, and opposition figures were subjected to varying degrees of harassment. Furthermore, Stroessner's Paraguay became a haven for Nazi war criminals, including Josef Mengele,[15][16] and non-communist peaceful opposition was crushed. Given Stroessner's affinity for Nazism and harboring of Nazi war criminals, foreign press often referred to his government as the "poor man's Nazi regime".[9]
Stroessner's rule brought more stability than most of the country's living residents had previously known. From 1927 to 1954, the country had had 22 presidents, including six from 1948 to 1954 alone.[17] However, that stability came at a high cost. Corruption was rampant (Stroessner himself did not dispute charges of corruption at some levels in his government) and Paraguay's human rights record was considered one of the poorest in South America.[18] During Stroessner's regime, an estimated 3,000 to 4,000 people were murdered, 400 to 500 more "disappeared," and thousands more imprisoned and tortured.[19][20]
Press freedom was also limited, constitutional guarantees notwithstanding. Any outcry about government mistreatment or attacks toward the Colorado Party would result in destruction of the media outlets. Many media executives were sent to prison or tortured.[21] Because of this, political opponents were few and far between. Near the end of this presidency, he declared that he would remove the state of siege, but quickly recanted after students began protesting trolley fares.[22]
. . .
Under Stroessner, egregious human rights violations were committed against the Aché Indian population of Paraguay's eastern districts, largely as the result of U.S. and European corporations wanting access to the country's forests, mines and grazing lands.[33][9] The Aché Indians resided on land that was coveted and had resisted relocation attempts by the Paraguayan army. The government retaliated with massacres and forced many Aché into slavery. In 1974, the UN accused Paraguay of slavery and genocide. Only a few hundred Aché remained alive by the late 1970s.[9] The Stroessner regime financed this genocide with U.S. aid.[9]
More:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfredo_Stroessner
President Alfredo Stroessner, on the left, passing time with Richard Nixon's success story, bloody dictator Augusto Pinochet, who also loved state torture and murder of dissodents.
Probably had something to do with Washington support of every "white" right-wing power hungry, US-serving would-be leader south of the border, regardless of how they have to betray their own countrymen and women (the non-oligarchs) in order to get US support.
The missing connection needed to make a point will probably come back to me in a dream, a little bit too late!
Thank you for your patience, Marcus IM!
Ty for all your wonderful posts!
