Intel Memo: Marco Rubio Targeted For Assassination By Venezuela Lawmaker

Senator Marco Rubio may have been targeted for assassination by one of Venezuela"s most powerful lawmakers and long time secretive head of the country"s security services. According to the Miami Herald, the US Department of Homeland Security disseminated a sensitive memo to federal agencies last month which identified Diosdado Cabello Rondon as behind the "order to have Senator Rubio assassinated," while also noting the intelligence to be unverified as “no specific information regarding an assassination plot against Senator Rubio has been garnered thus far."

Cabello Rondon is widely believed to be Venezuela"s second most-powerful man and head of the country"s military and security services. US media has referred to him as "the Frank Underwood of Venezuela" (from the TV series House of Cards) for his well-known history of corruption, suspicion of drug trafficking, and Machiavellian plotting against rivals and involvement in pro-Chavez military crackdowns. As a behind the scenes influential military leader he"s kept both the late president Hugo Chavez and current socialist strongman Nicolas Maduro in power.

Diosdado Cabello Rondon, currently Vice President of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela, also believed to be powerful leader of the country"s security services. Photo Source: Wiki Commons.

Politico has also obtained the memo and reports the following contents of the intelligence report marked "law enforcement sensitive" (the memo"s contents are in bold):

“In some unspecified manner, CABELLO RONDON’s problems involved U.S. Senator Marco Rubio,” said the memo, obtained by POLITICO, which is not releasing information that could endanger Rubio, his family or confidential law enforcement methods or sources.

The memo said that Cabello Rondon may even have discussed raising the money to kill Rubio or deal with the “problems” facing Venezuela’s ruling regime.

“CABELLO RONDON did indeed issue an order ... to have Senator Rubio assassinated,” the memo said. “Additionally, CABELLO RONDON was communicating with unspecified Mexican nationals in furtherance of the matter.”

Rubio has long been a fierce critic of Cabello with the two having recently engaged in a public war of words. During a July 19 Senate hearing Rubio called Cabello “the Pablo Escobar of Venezuela” as US authorities have an active drug investigation against Cabello and other Venezuelan leaders pending. Rubio is further spearheading efforts to increase sanctions on the socialist Latin American country, including the controversial proposal of an oil embargo, which other congress members warn could send the entirety of Venezuela into an economic tailspin and a worsened humanitarian catastrophe. But the Florida senator"s influence over US-Venezuela relations is hugely significant as it"s widely reported that he has President"s Trump"s ear regarding US policy toward the geopolitically important country.

Meanwhile, the war of words ratcheted up this summer when Cabello took to Twitter and called the Florida senator “Narco Rubio” in response to an attack by Rubio:

Fact that Narco leader @dcabellor annouced #6Aug military rebellion & govt response shows who"s in charge of security forces in #Venezuela

— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) August 6, 2017

Narco Rubio, alias @marcorubio, lo peor de la política imperial, aparece como el defensor de los terroristas que atacaron Fuerte Paramacay.

— Diosdado Cabello R (@dcabellor) August 6, 2017

It appears that both Senator Rubio and the Capitol police are taking the intelligence memo warning of a possible assassination plot seriously, especially after the June 14 unrelated shooting in Virginia which targeted Republican members of Congress at a baseball event. Multiple media reports have detailed a noticeably heightened security presence around Rubio, including a mixed Florida and Capitol police detail, as well as at times three additional plainclothes officers. According to the Miami Herald:

Capitol reporters first noticed police officers trailing Rubio almost a month ago. When he was interviewed last week by Herald news partner WFOR-CBS 4, Rubio’s security included at least one Miami-Dade County Police officer. MDPD was one of the law-enforcement agencies asked to help protect Rubio.

Local media began noticing the increased security in late July, which was large enough to become the subject of some conjecture. With the Sunday publication of the assassination plot memo we now know why. Multiple media outlets have sought comment from both Rubio"s staff and the Venezuelan Embassy, though no responses have been issued. 

As it appears that Rubio now has reason to make his public fight against Venezuela"s ruling socialist party a personal vendetta, we can expect the rhetoric to intensify even more in the coming week, especially following Trump"s unexpected comment on Friday afternoon that the US has a "military option for Venezuela."

Venezuela Claims It "Crushed" A Military Rebellion

One day after Maduro"s new "constituent assembly" expelled chief prosecutor Luisa Ortega Diaz - the highest-ranking member of President Maduro’s administration to break ranks with the authoritarian - from her post and ordered her to stand trial, confirming fears that it would use its unchecked powers to root out government critics, Venezuelan authorities claimed to have suppressed a military rebellion near the central city of Valencia, an official said on Sunday morning.

As Reuters reports, socialist Party deputy Diosdado Cabello made the announcement shortly after the release of a video showing a group of men in military uniform announcing a rebellion and calling for a broad uprising against President Nicolas Maduro. Cabello also said that there was a "terrorist" attack at a military base controlled by troops loyal to the government and several people were arrested, according to AP. One witness in the area of a military base in the town of Naguanagua reported hearing gunshots before dawn, but Cabello said the situation had been brought under control.

On Twitter, Cabello said that troops acted quickly to control the situation in the early morning at the Paramacay base in the central city of Venezuela.

En la madrugada atacantes terroristas entraron al Fuerte Paramacay en Valencia, atentando contra nuestra FANB. Varios terroristas detenidos.

— Diosdado Cabello R (@dcabellor) August 6, 2017

Luego del ataque terrorista al Fuerte Paramacay, se activaron planes de defensa, despliegue de tropas, para garantizar la seguridad interna.

— Diosdado Cabello R (@dcabellor) August 6, 2017

In a video released on Sunday, a man who identified himself as Juan Carlos Caguaripano, a former National Guard captain, and flanked by about a dozen men in military uniforms said: "We demand the immediate formation of a transition government." He added that "this is not a coup d"etat. This is a civic and military action to re-establish constitutional order. But more than that, it is to save the country from total destruction." In the video, Caguaripano added that any unit refusing to go along with its call for rebellion would be declared a military target.

LO ÚLTIMO | Pronunciamiento de presuntos militares contra Maduro, lo encabeza el Capitán GNB Juan Carlos Caguaripano, prófugo desde 2014 pic.twitter.com/JdN4qdDifN

— Alberto Rodríguez (@AlbertoRT51) August 6, 2017

Video clips posted on Twitter on Sunday morning showed civilians singing the national anthem in front of the 41st armorder brigade in the Valencia military base.

#Venezuela #Now Civilians sing the national anthem in front of the 41st armored brigade in Naguanagua, Valencia ... pic.twitter.com/IDiYFjP1LZ

— Freiheit und Frieden (@newya1207) August 6, 2017

Previously on Saturday evening, prominent opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez was returned home to serve his sentence under house arrest, days after being hauled back to prison in the middle of the night in a move that drew international condemnation. The activist"s wife Lilian Tintori said in a message on Twitter that she and her husband remained committed to achieving "peace and freedom for Venezuela."

Lopez was released from prison July 8 and placed under house arrest after serving three years of a 13-year sentence on charges of inciting violence at opposition rallies. Many human rights groups considered him a political prisoner. But he was taken back into custody last Tuesday along with former Caracas Mayor Antonio Ledezma in what many believed was a renewed crackdown on the opposition following the election of delegates to a new, all-powerful constitutional assembly charged with overhauling the nation"s charter.

It is unclear if a potential military coup was confined to just one base, and if it is indeed contained as the ruling regime claims; it is also unclear if this was a legitimate "rebellion" or another staged operation. Considering that just over a month ago, a famous action movie star manned a helicopter and "dropped grenades" in what was said to be an attempted coup, but many said was merely staged theater to generate empathy for the Maduro regime, it is difficult to keep track what in Venezuela is a real and what is a fake military uprising.

U.S. May Halt Oil Imports From Venezuela

Authored by Irina Slav via OilPrice.com,

The Trump administration is mulling over sanctions against senior Venezuelan government officials, and additional measures could include sanctions against the country’s oil industry, such as halting imports into the U.S., according to senior Washington officials who spoke to media.

The goal of the sanctions is to prevent the Nicolas Maduro government from having things its way at a July 30 election for a Constituent Assembly that, the U.S. administration believes, would serve to cement Maduro’s power and turn Venezuela into a “full dictatorship.”

The Constitutional Assembly vote was proposed by the government as a means of tackling the political crisis that Venezuela slid into last year, after the election of a new parliament where the opposition had a majority that put it at odds with the government. A Constituent Assembly can rewrite the country’s constitution, and many observers see the move as an attempt to strengthen the current regime’s hold on power.

After months of often violent protests, the opposition has now called a 24-hour national strike after conducting an unofficial referendum that, Al Jazeera reports, suggested overwhelming opposition to the idea of voting for a Constituent Assembly and equally overwhelming support for transparent parliamentary elections.

Russian Sputnik quoted Venezuela’s Foreign Minister Samuel Moncada as saying Venezuela will reconsider its relations with the U.S. should Washington go ahead with the sanctions, which, for the time being, seem to target two senior government officials: Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez and the second most senior figure in the ruling Socialist Party, Diosdado Cabello. The allegations against them are for rights violations.

Venezuela is the third-largest oil exporter to the US, with the daily rate of imports for the week to July 7 at 823,000 barrels, according to the EIA, about 30,000 bpd less than Saudi Arabia’s daily exports to the U.S.

In 2016, Venezuelan imports accounted for 9.5 percent of total U.S. crude imports.