English
Español
Jeffrey Epstein too was controversial, remember? For many years, the sweet deal that Epstein cut with Alex Acosta was referred to as controversial. Acosta would become Trump's labor secretary. But there was no controversy, was there? For well over a decade, Epstein laughed at law enforcement while cultivating and exploiting relations at the highest levels in the U.S. and elsewhere. Epstein's friends were all in awe of his worldliness and sophistication, of his suave demeanor, of his erudition. Many visited him in the island, to partake in abuse of underage girls and women forced into prostitution, while cooking all kinds of deals and surrendering to the host's "towering intellect". It took Julie Knipe Brown many years of dogged work to move the descriptive needle about Jeffrey Epstein from "controversial" to "disgraced sex offender".
A similar phenomenon is taking place with all the reporting on the Trump's administration oil deal with Alejandro Betancourt. There is little in the way of fact checking and proper journalistic scrutiny. For the most part the media is presenting the deal as a given, and the deal's participants are presented as legitimate. Betancourt is this "tycoon" whose "oil experience goes back decades" and without whom the Trump administration "couldn't have removed" Nicolas Maduro from power. Those non conversant with Betancourt's past are basically led to believe that Betancourt the man and Chevron belong in the same league, have the same know how, track record and operational capacity in Venezuela, hence announced partnership with the U.S. government. It is not ignorant, but childish, for it purposefully disregards Chevron's legendary capacity to keep operating under whatever opposition / chavista faction held power in Venezuela. Can the "controversial" Betancourt claim the same?
The announcement's blowback has been like the Nepal floods. The oil industry, energy analysts, finance, the intelligence community, all agree on one question: what does this "controversial" man without known track record bring to the table that multinationals can't? The sheer and now characteristic ineptitude of Trump and his officials is the best show in town. In their desperate scrambling to justify the unjustifiable the clowns have admitted, for instance, that the "controversial" man can walk into the Kremlin unannounced to "hand-deliver a letter" on behalf of Juan Guaido, who for a while was an "opposition leader" recognised around the world.
Wait, what? We've known this, of course, for many years. We remain the only media, anywhere, that provided specifics of Betancourt's association with Russia's FSB and Gazprom executives that can't operate internationally without Putin's blessing. And now, Marco Rubio's mouthpiece is confirming -in the same breath- that the "controversial" man is so well connected to the Kremlin that he can just show up with a letter, and that doesn't raise all kinds of alarms in Washington as to his suitability to enter into partnerships with the U.S. Department of War’s Office of Strategic Capital, the U.S. Department of State and the Trump administration?
The Trump administration is but an English-speaking version of chavismo. It is so utterly incompetent and corrupt that the best partners it could find are Delcy and Jorge Rodriguez and "controversial" Alejandro Betancourt. The White House publishes fact sheets that could as well have been written in Miraflores, where strict observation of existing legislation and language appropriateness have never been a consideration. The White House informs the world that "corrupt cronies of Maduro and Chavez" assisted by "malign foreign actors" have "looted Venezuela's resources", and the solution is to bring the man that best fits the description of a chavista crony that, by the way, can hand-deliver letters to the Kremlin when he is not operating his Petrozamora JV with Russian firms and FSB operatives.
Detachment to reality of these imbeciles is such that they then conclude that more lying to the media would placate criticism. Betancourt isn't "controversial", he isn't involved in any criminal investigation stateside, but Rudy Giuliani, Bill Barr, Mauricio Claver-Carone, Christopher Landau, Colin McDonald, Pam Bondi, Caleb Orr, and Todd Blanche, all but Giuliani Trump officials, have intervened directly with either the U.S. Department of Justice or the U.S. Department of Treasury to stop criminal charges, indictments and / or sanctions against Betancourt. They have been doing this since Trump's first presidency. If he was never involved in any active criminal investigations, as Marco Rubio claimed, why do all those Trump officials were ordered to intervene?
Can anyone name how many associates of the U.S. Department of War’s Office of Strategic Capital, the U.S. Department of State and the Trump administration have ever been arrested in London (in London...) for involvement in money laundering? Can anyone name how many associates of the U.S. Department of War’s Office of Strategic Capital, the U.S. Department of State and the Trump administration have ever been the target of international arrest warrants for money laundering issued by Spain and Switzerland (Switzerland...)? Houses raided, funds frozen... how many?
Betancourt was recently issued with a valid U.S. visa, so the "biggest deal in world's history" could be negotiated. Can Marco Rubio tell how many visits Betancourt had made before his first arrest in London in September 2025, given that he is allegedly not part of any criminal investigation stateside? Can Rubio provide details of how many entries has Betancourt accumulated since the FBI started looking into Derwick Associates' partnership with Missouri-based ProEnergy?
For all intents and purposes, Betancourt was in house arrest, only able to move by helicopter between two mansions (London and near Oxford). But Claver Carone and Rubio have concocted this make-believe story whereby Operation Southern Spear hinged not on the military might, operational capacity and surgical planning of USSOUTHCOM, II Marine Expeditionary Force, the U.S. Navy and its Fourth Fleet, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Task Force Western Hemisphere, etc. None of it mattered. It was Betancourt in his PJs, working the lines with Delcy, what really got the job done. Otherwise it would have been another Iran, as the BS making rounds in Trump's circles had it.
Some media are printing similar nonsense about how Betancourt was instrumental in embedding Trafigura and Vitol with PDVSA (already embedded), or how he, singlehandedly took NABEP's production from 18,000 to 200,000 barrels a day. Absent from these preposterous claims is Trafigura and Vitol track record in Venezuela and around the world. No one can teach Swiss trading houses how to employ corruption to do business in banana republics, not even Betancourt has grown to that size or has that reach. Swiss trading houses have done tens of billions of dollars worth of corrupt business in Venezuela. Betancourt had nothing to do with it. Similarly, no one seems to have connected the fact that when Betancourt got reactivated in Venezuela by Harry Sargeant, Petrocedeño and Petrojunin were added to the portfolio. The claimed current production figure is just not Petrozamora, is it? And who built Petrocedeño and Petrojunin? Can the clowns spreading Betancourt's propaganda explain?
Taking Trump at face value is a viable and acceptable stance only in the MAGAsphere. Elsewhere, well, let's just be magnanimous here and say that the world has a different opinion, one attuned to inescapable realities. It's all historic deals, won wars, superlative economics and fundamentist Trumpian creed there, but outside of that echo chamber, Epstein was a deranged sex offender that should’ve been put away along all who offended with him decades ago. It is known that Venezuela is not a success in any measurable way. Ditto Iran, which has imposed elevated energy costs to the whole world thanks to Trump's "total control" of Hormuz. The removal or Maduro and the forceful imposition of chavismo's remnants is not palatable. Iran, Russia, China are laughing with the freak show. Delcy and Jorge will have the last laugh too. Other than Trump's decision to partner and protect Betancourt there is no controversy, and that is why the deal won't pass the test of time.
While the clowns were clowning, Chevron moved further in with a massive deal. Let's just see of all the projects being announced, which of the ones started from scratch hit production targets in say five years time, shall we?
