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President Donald Trump is a very busy man. He doesn't have much time to be entertaining anything or anyone for long. The recent announcement of his administration getting into some kind of a partnership with Alejandro Betancourt does bring one relevant question: who made the intro and got the fee? The Washington Post has advanced the hypothetical option of Mauricio Claver-Carone, as the behind-scenes architect of the deal. This ignores players that were either on Betancourt's payroll, or were known to him several years before Trump's first presidency, when Claver-Carone was just a blogger with no ascendancy in the White House.
Once upon a time, when Betancourt was nothing more than the bolichico who had bilked hundreds of millions of dollars from Venezuela with his Derwick Associates shell, he thought it was prudent to sue the owner of one of Venezuela’s oldest banks. Initially, a lawsuit in New York was started, but it was then withdrawn as Florida became Betancourt's preferred jurisdictional venue.
It remains unclear why exactly Betancourt picked New York, but it must have been there that he first established contact with Hector Torres, at the time with Kasowitz, Benson, Torres & Friedman. A good exercise is to Google, for instance, Marc Kasowitz Donald Trump. Or David Friedman Donald Trump. In any case, Torres was engaged to send cease and desist letters to bloggers and media reporting on Betancourt. Among other spectacularly baseless claims, Torres would write:
As noted by Mr. Guzman, you clearly are misinformed with respect to purported investigations concerning Derwick by various United States government agencies. First, Derwick can declare categorically that no agency of the U.S. government, including the FBI, the Department of State, the Treasury Department or Homeland Security has requested any information from Derwick nor, to our knowledge, is there any basis for the assertion that you appear -- mistakenly -- to accept as fact, that one or more of those agencies have made any inquiries about Derwick, its founders or its operations.
Miami-Dade court records show an entry "FOR ADMISSION TO APPEAR PRO HAC VICE/HECTOR TORRES", dated 09/13/2012. A court registry deposit was made by "KASOWITZ, BENSON, TORRES & FRIEDMAN LLP" on 09/21/2012.
Al Cardenas also became involved with Betancourt and his criminal partners. It is known that Marco Rubio's earliest political debut was aided in not inconsiderable measure by Cardenas.
Later, around 2014, Fusion GPS was engaged by Betancourt & Derwick. Fusion GPS became embroiled in the infamous Russia Dossier against Trump, where Kasowitz had an active role.
Former New York Prosecutor Adam Kaufmann was also retained by Betancourt & Derwick. Kaufmann never properly addressed Preet Bharara's criminal probe into Derwick.
Then it would be the turn of Brian Ballard, former boss of Pam Bondi and Susie Wiles. According to this report "In 2017, Ballard registered to lobby for Hawkers USA, a sunglasses company. Hawkers paid Ballard $430,000 to work on “general government, tax, and trade issues, policies, and regulations,” according to the firm. Ballard did not note in its disclosure forms that Hawkers is a subsidiary of a Spanish company, the Saldum Ventures group. The president and controlling shareholder of that company is Alejandro Betancourt Lopez, a wealthy Venezuelan, who, according to the Herald and the Washington Post, was among unnamed alleged conspirators in a federal criminal complaint detailing an embezzlement and bribery scheme related to Venezuela’s national oil company." [bold added]
Later still, Rudy Giuliani and Bill Barr made an entrance into Betancourt's dealing with American law enforcement.
All of the above happened before Claver-Carone became the shrewdest oil player in Washington, and before Marco Rubio ran a thorough check with all federal agencies to clear Betancourt. Therefore, the only question worth asking right now is: who really talked Trump into picking Betancourt? There's no question about Betancourt's pedigree and track record in a place like Trump's White House. But still, there's no shortage of such specimens in America, is there? If Kushner's brother could be considered as a potential master of world football, surely there's someone in that orbit, and closer to home, that could "take over" Venezuela's crude reserves to guarantee success of "THE BIGGEST OIL DEAL IN WORLD HISTORY!"
