Corruption

Venezuela holds the largest proven oil reserves on earth. It has lithium. It has agriculture, a coastline three hours away from Miami, and—for the first time in a generation a political window. The reconstruction investment case is real. So is the obstacle for every actor, across every ideology, that wants Venezuelan assets to perform.

The obstacle is not the oil price. It is not the OFAC sanctions framework, which has been substantially liberalized since January 2026. It is not even the absence of functioning institutions, though that is the proximate problem every investor will encounter. The obstacle has a nucleus with name, a title, and an active intelligence apparatus. And his continued presence in power is not merely a moral affront. 

This is not a story about mismanagement. Mismanagement leaves a paper trail.

What happened across Venezuela’s infrastructure ministries between 2002 and 2012 lest almost none, deliberately. Over $150 billion in documented railway, housing, and infrastructure contracts were disbursed across that decade. The projects largely do not exist. The documentation largely does not exist. The Tinaco-Anaco railway, a $7.5 billion contract signed with China Railway Engineering Corporation, produced looted campsites and empty concrete columns. The National Railway Plan, budgeted at $150 billion, produced less than one percent of its projected track. 

One of the ministers who oversaw that disbursement period of the infrastructure that is so dire, and who preserved an influence only surpassed by Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro, today is the Interior Minister of Venezuela. He controls the national intelligence apparatus, the police, and the armed colectivos. He is Diosdado Cabello, your competing General Partner that has acted without impunity. He carries a live indictment from a New York court on narco-trafficking charges. He is sanctioned by the US Treasury. He hosts a television program that airs every Wednesday evening.

By 2011, the beneficial ownership architecture built by Venezuela’s ruling network spanned more than forty trustees across multiple jurisdictions: a parallel private equity structure embedded inside a sovereign state.

The distinction that every institutional investor must internalize is this: a mismanaged State is recoverable. A State whose productive apparatus was deliberately extracted (not ruined by incompetence but hollowed out because extraction was more profitable than production) presents a categorically different investment problem. The destruction was not the side effect of the governance model. It was the point of it. Cabello remains an icon of that governance model.

The counterparty problem

Conventional private equity rests on a foundational assumption: your counterparty has an interest in the underlying asset performing. Returns depend on it. Exit depends on it. The entire structure of an LP agreement, a term sheet, a co-investment right, all of it assumes a counterparty whose incentive is aligned with asset value.

In Venezuela, the sophisticated actor on the other side of the table for two decades was running a competing structure. One with no limited partners, no fiduciary duty, no quarterly reporting, and a sovereign intelligence apparatus for compliance. That structure had a single mandate: maximum extraction, minimum documentation, zero accountability. It executed that mandate with precision.

By 2011, the beneficial ownership architecture built by Venezuela’s ruling network spanned more than forty trustees across multiple jurisdictions. This is not a warlord’s operation. This is a parallel private equity structure embedded inside a sovereign state.

That sophistication is precisely what makes the residual presence of these networks so consequential for reconstruction capital. They did not disappear with the January 2026 transition. They repositioned. The structures that governed Venezuela’s extraction apparatus are experts at corporate layering: shell companies, nominee directors, off-channel financial instruments designed to distance beneficial owners from the assets they control.

This is the counterparty environment that reconstruction capital is walking into. Not a post-conflict landscape with residual corruption. An active, sophisticated, multi-jurisdictional extraction network that has spent 25 years perfecting its operational security

These are not improvised operations, they are multi-jurisdictional corporate architectures spanning Switzerland, Brazil, Spain, the Caribbean, and more recently Turkey and the Middle East. Each node chosen for its specific regulatory gap or enforcement lag. The $5.2 billion in gold shipped to Switzerland between 2013 and 2016, the Alex Saab procurement network running through Turkey and Cape Verde, the Zapatero indictment revealing consulting structures designed to siphon money from China, Venezuela, and Spain simultaneously these are documented examples of the same operational capability.

These networks retain the best advisors money can pay. Former heads of state, international law firms, financial intermediaries operating across jurisdictions. The Zapatero case is not the exception, it is the template. And they operate with the enforcement discipline of a cartel: strategic asset moves backed by the implicit and sometimes explicit willingness to use coercion when commercial pressure is insufficient. The SDNY indictments against senior regime figures on narco-trafficking charges are not separate from the financial architecture. They are evidence that the same command structure manages both.

This is the counterparty environment that reconstruction capital is walking into. Not a post-conflict landscape with residual corruption. An active, sophisticated, multi-jurisdictional extraction network that has spent 25 years perfecting its operational security, asset acquisitions by “patriotic”expropriations to serve their drug-logistic hubs and is now repositioning for the reconstruction window. 

Why China doesn’t actually want this

China’s position in Venezuela is widely misread as unconditional support. The reality is more commercially specific. China has over $60 billion in loan-for-oil exposure through CNPC and the China Development Bank. Those loans require one thing: barrels flowing. Barrels require functional production infrastructure. Functional production infrastructure requires institutional stability, contract enforcement, and (critically) a counterparty with an interest in assets performing.

Beijing understands this better than any outside observer because its own institutions have investigated the damage. Xi Jinping’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection placed a CITIC Group vice president under investigation for serious disciplinary violations, the same CITIC that embedded confidentiality clauses in Venezuelan housing contracts barring the Venezuelan government from accessing financial information about its own projects. An Andorran court documented $100 million in bribes paid by CAMC Engineering to Venezuelan officials. China did not need backchannel meetings to understand the corruption. Its own companies were defendants in it.

China also enforces its own code of conduct internally. The CCP’s anti-corruption apparatus, operating through the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, has a long reach, including over state enterprise executives who participated in overseas schemes that damaged China’s institutional reputation. Chinese firms implicated in Venezuelan bribery networks in Andorra for payments to PDVSA lobbyists related to Venezuela’s electricity system did not operate without consequence within their own system. Beijing does not publicize these accountability mechanisms, but they exist. The party does not tolerate reputational exposure that undermines its economic diplomacy, regardless of the geography.

Every dollar that disappears into the extraction apparatus is a dollar that does not produce the barrel that services the Chinese loans.

The Trump-Xi summit concluded in Beijing on May 15, 2026, the same day Lamargas exploded on Lake Maracaibo, a facility operated by China Concord Resources Corp under a PDVSA joint venture contract. At the moment, the US and Chinese governments are navigating toward economic stabilization and a framework for managed competition, building on their South Korea thaw. That G2 stabilization has direct implications for Venezuela: a China that is repositioning toward US capital markets, Boeing purchases, and agricultural commitments is a China with diminishing strategic incentive to backstop a Venezuelan network that embarrasses it commercially.

The Chevron model—US-anchored, internationally governed, with Chinese off-take embedded through structured contracts—is precisely the kind of framework that serves Beijing’s debt recovery needs without requiring it to defend the indefensible.

A ministry based in a kleptocracy whose financial architecture is premised on assets not performing for the state is structurally incompatible with Chinese debt recovery. Beijing is not sentimental about this. It is calculating.

China’s $50-60 billion in loan-for-oil exposure to Venezuela requires one thing above all else: barrels flowing. Barrels require functional production infrastructure. Functional production infrastructure requires institutional stability, contract enforcement, and a counterparty whose economic interest is aligned with assets performing. When the ministry overseeing oil production is the same apparatus that systematically extracted value from every sector it touched, railways that produced concrete columns and nothing else, housing programs with $76 billion in unaccounted deficits, power plants that were paid for and never built, you can see that the problem for Beijing is not political. Every dollar that disappears into the extraction apparatus is a dollar that does not produce the barrel that services the loans.

China tried to correct this internally before abandoning the effort. In 2018, Margaret Myers at the Inter-American Dialogue pointed out that Beijing “tried over the past couple of years to guide decision-making in Caracas by providing advice or by tying loans to production capacity projects in the oil sector, in order to try to help Venezuela right itself economically. That has not proven successful.”

By 2016, China stopped issuing new loans entirely. That is not a diplomatic signal. That is a credit committee decision. The same kind of decision any institutional lender makes when the counterparty’s governance structure has made repayment structurally unlikely.

The Brazilian vector

Brazil’s relationship to Venezuela’s reconstruction is complicated by a paper trail that runs through the largest corruption scandal in Latin American history. Odebrecht paid the highest figure of any country outside Brazil itself. Venezuela’s own former prosecutor general, Luisa Ortega Díaz, formally linked those payments to senior Socialist Party figures including Diosdado Cabello after being removed from office and forced to flee the country. The investigation was halted by Venezuela’s highest court. The Swiss banking system was asked to provide a list of Venezuelan recipients. Neither process was allowed to reach its conclusion.

In Brazil, the Odebrecht network reached the highest levels of political life. Federal prosecutors investigated Lula for allegedly lobbying foreign governments on Odebrecht’s behalf after leaving the presidency, and for his role in directing state development bank BNDES financing toward Odebrecht projects abroad. The contracts that linked Odebrecht to Venezuela were not arm’s-length commercial transactions. They were, by Odebrecht’s own admission in its US Department of Justice plea agreement, instruments of a coordinated bribery architecture that spanned twelve countries and operated through a dedicated internal division (the Division of Structured Operations) whose sole purpose was managing political payments.

What does not yet exist is the decision—by US institutional capital—to arrive with a governance structure that the extraction network cannot penetrate.

Brazil has significant commercial interests in Venezuela’s reconstruction, across energy, agriculture, and infrastructure. Those interests are legitimate and Brazilian private capital is a natural reconstruction partner. The complication is not Brazil. It is the specific political-commercial network that governed Brazil’s prior engagement with Venezuela. Odebrecht did not select its Venezuelan counterparties through competitive markets. Contracts were directed through political relationships — between heads of state, with BNDES as the financing instrument, and with the Odebrecht Division of Structured Operations managing the payments in between.

Political networks have institutional memory. The preferred partners that flow through certain diplomatic channels into Venezuela’s reconstruction window carry relationships forged in that prior architecture. A governance framework serious about reconstruction cannot simply exclude Odebrecht, the legal entity. It must screen for the network that Odebrecht served. That screening is structural, not political. It is the difference between Brazilian capital that competes on merit and Brazilian capital that arrives pre-selected by the same diplomatic infrastructure that enabled the extraction.

The structure that worked and the decision that remains

One Venezuelan asset survived twenty-six years of chavismo with its value intact. One. CITGO Petroleum, incorporated in Delaware, governed under US fiduciary law, with its governance architecture anchored entirely outside Venezuelan legal jurisdiction. It survived not because of political protection but because of structural protection. US law held when every Venezuelan institution around it failed. That is not a coincidence. It is the blueprint.

Venezuela sits very close to Miami. Capital will flow in. The question is whether it arrives with a governance structure equal to the threat, or whether it arrives the way it always has in captured states: trusting counterparties who already demonstrated, at extraordinary scale, that trust was the wrong instrument.

The SDNY indicted the man who sits in the Interior Ministry. The US Treasury sanctioned him. He is still in the building. Turkish construction conglomerates, Asian commodity traders, and European energy juniors are already positioning—without FCPA compliance costs, without fiduciary obligations, without LP reporting requirements. They will move faster. They will price lower. This is what happened in Iraq after 2003. It is what happened in Libya.

The architecture to do this differently exists. Human capital exists in the diaspora: eight million Venezuelans left and within them there are over a million that hold verifiable credentials embedded in US and European institutions, carrying the technical and legal knowledge to rebuild what was taken. The OFAC licensing framework exists. The proof of concept exists in CITGO’s survival. What does not yet exist is the decision—by US institutional capital—to arrive with a governance structure that the extraction network cannot penetrate. That decision is the only thing standing between reconstruction and a second extraction with better letterhead.

Venezuela is far from being the only country in the Americas where State institutions have been used to crack down on independent media and protect the interests of ruling elites. In Guatemala, the case of journalist José Rubén Zamora became one of the clearest examples of how prosecutors, courts and political power can converge to silence investigative journalism.

In early April 2025, I interviewed Ramón Zamora, son of Guatemalan journalist and elPeriódico founder José Rubén Zamora. His arrest following years of investigations into alleged government corruption led to the newspaper’s closure and the persecution of people close to him. During our conversation, Ramón Zamora described how Guatemala has developed a tacit network of complicity between State institutions and political authorities, a system that raises broader questions about this new form of power in Latin America and may also help explain how the chavista State in Venezuela operates.

After elPeriódico published two investigations on May 2 and May 3, 2021 into apparent cases of corruption in the government of former President Alejandro Giammattei, the media outlet was subjected to legal persecution that culminated in the arrest of Rubén Zamora, who had dedicated his work to investigating corruption in the Central American country. 

The persecution began with an investigation into alleged bribery by the newspaper to obtain information related to the publications. The judge who heard the case dismissed it. Later, in 2022, an investigation into money laundering related to the sale of works of art owned by Zamora to cover elPeriódico‘s costs was reopened, leading to his arrest.

The imprisonment of Zamora caught the attention of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the Office of the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression. In their 2022 and 2023 annual reports, the IACHR requested information from Guatemala regarding the country’s human rights situation and recalled that Zamora has benefited from precautionary measures since 2003 due to risks linked to his journalistic work. Guatemala rejected parts of the assessment as lacking objectivity. Amnesty International described Zamora as a prisoner of conscience and condemned his detention. Zamora was granted house arrest for the second time on February 12, 2026.

Reducing chavismo to a simple narco-structure simplifies the scope that the organization can have, since apparent drug trafficking would not be the essence of the system but rather an activity within it.

During the arrest and initial detention of journalist José Rubén Zamora in 2022, Guatemala was governed by Alejandro Giammattei, a conservative president whose administration faced strong criticism from international organizations over corruption, institutional deterioration, and pressure against journalists and anti-corruption actors. Since January 14, 2024, Guatemala has been governed by Bernardo Arévalo, a progressive and anti-corruption reformist whose presidential term is scheduled to end in January 2028.

His son, Ramón Zamora, says that his father’s persecution is the result of an unwritten agreement between various powerful sectors within the State that aim to protect their interests.  “In Guatemala, there is something my father called the “Pact of the Corrupt.” The Pact of the Corrupts is a tacit agreement that forms a network of corruption spread across political parties and institutions, where those who reach positions of power must govern according to the pact.”

This explanation describes the composition of a de facto cross-cutting network, which has political parties, institutions, and security forces under its control, punishing dissent as a means of survival, subjecting its detractors to exile, imprisonment, and discredit.

“The judge presiding over the case ordered an investigation into my father’s defense attorneys and witnesses, causing his lawyer to go into exile just five days after his arrest. Currently, six of the twelve lawyers who have defended my father have been detained,” says Ramón, who is also outside Guatemala with his mother after the court issued an arrest warrant against both of them. 

“They also persecuted my family. My mother and I were outside Guatemala visiting the United States when the judge handling my father’s case issued an arrest warrant against us, so we decided not to return.”

But how can the Pact explain the nature of the chavista State?

Corruption as political capital

Chavismo is not exclusively a militarized organization or simply a drug trafficking operation. As in Guatemala with the Pact of the Corrupts, the institutions of the chavista State are co-opted and work in the tacit interest of their members, where one of the main means of maintaining the pact is loyalty based on impunity, while corruption operates as political capital.

Consequently, the exercise of power is not oriented toward citizens or the satisfaction of public demands, but rather toward preserving the internal balance of the Pact itself. Governing involves administering concessions, distributing power quotas, and avoiding any decision that could alter the network of interests that sustains the regime. Reforms, when they exist, do not constitute a project of institutional transformation but are carefully calibrated to avoid destabilizing the architecture of loyalties on which the system rests.

This model of governance, the pacted State, is complemented by a logic of repression, combining massive and indiscriminate terror against actors whose actions threaten the balance of the pact. Similar dynamics can be observed in regimes such as Russia, Belarus, Nicaragua, and several Central Asian States. Journalists, judges, political leaders, and internal and external dissidents are the main targets of a system of coercion designed not to mobilize the masses, but to send clear and disciplining signals to those who break the pact. The selectivity of repression does not mitigate its severity. On the contrary, it makes it more efficient and functional in sustaining the apparatus of power.

Reducing chavismo to a simple narco-structure simplifies the scope that the organization can have, since apparent drug trafficking would not be the essence of the system but rather an activity within it. The Venezuelan State has become a web of systematic corruption that makes crime a functional activity of power.

The stability of the system is due to a network of mostly informal agreements between civilian, military, and economic actors who share a common interest: preserving an order in which rupture is more costly than continuity.

In this context, ideology ceases to serve as the system’s organizing principle and takes on a strictly instrumental role. It is not the compass that guides the action of power, but rather an adaptable rhetorical resource used to justify decisions already made to sustain the pact. Chavismo does not act primarily to carry out an ideological project, but rather to preserve a balance of interests between civilian, military, and criminal elites, in which ideas can mutate without the system suffering. Ideology, thus, does not guide the organization: it accompanies it, decorates it, or excuses it, but does not determine it.

The thesis of a pacted State suggests that authoritarian stability rests not only on repression or ideology, but on a shared understanding among political, military, and economic elites that preserving the existing order is preferable to risking rupture. Such systems can appear remarkably resilient precisely because their survival depends less on ideological coherence than on the mutual guarantees exchanged within the ruling coalition.

The notion of a pacted State helps explain why chavismo has shown a capacity for survival that goes beyond personalistic or circumstantial explanations. The stability of the system is due to a network of mostly informal agreements between civilian, military, and economic actors who share a common interest: preserving an order in which rupture is more costly than continuity. As long as that calculation remains valid, the system does not collapse; it adapts, reconfigures itself, and absorbs pressures without altering its fundamental logic. Yet the resilience of pacted States is not immutable.

Such systems begin to weaken when influential actors within the ruling coalition conclude that the regime can no longer guarantee protection, resources, or political survival. Economic decline, succession disputes, international pressure, social unrest, or weakening coercive institutions can alter the cost-benefit calculations sustaining the pact. Similar dynamics were visible in Eastern Europe after November 1989, when regimes in the German Democratic Republic, Romania, and Bulgaria rapidly collapsed once the elite coalitions sustaining them began to fracture internally, a process that would also unfold in Albania.

History suggests that pacted States often project an image of permanence precisely until the internal understandings sustaining them begin, almost imperceptibly, to dissolve.

Voters in Colombia will head to the polls on May 31 for a presidential election. Some of the main concerns for Colombians are healthcare, corruption, and security. Al Jazeera’s Teresa Bo reports from Bogota. 

It’s always spectacular to see a big shot getting caught. Especially when he’s made a long career at the top of an European democracy under a mask of respectability. And, oh so suddenly, it turns out he’s made a fortune dealing with a Latin American dictatorship.

The sequence was— as people love to say today—worth of a Netflix series. 

Hours before getting on another flight to Caracas, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero decided to stay in Madrid once he knew he had just become the first former prime minister in the history of Spain’s 50-year-old democracy to be indicted for a crime. For those who turn on the phone in the morning across the Atlantic, when it is noon in Spain, the news of the indictment came as one bundle with the footage of Zapatero’s office being raided by an anti-corruption investigative unit of Spain’s National Police Corps, known as UDEF.

Zapatero was indicted by Audiencia National (an equivalent of the Supreme Court) for selling his influence to get a financial relief kit for an airline, Plus Ultra, the smallest of four Spanish carriers that received assistance from Madrid as a result of the demand-side shock during the pandemic. This company, with a fleet of seven aircrafts, was also the youngest of the lot, and had the particular feature of having inaugurated routes to Caracas in the annus horribilis of 2017, a time when international operators were withdrawing from the country en masse. As Armando.Info investigative reporter Roberto Deniz would reveal in December 2018, Plus Ultra’s majority stakeholders were from Venezuela.

Eight years later, Zapatero is being prosecuted over allegations of political influence peddling related to the €53 million bailout of Plus Ultra. He also faces charges of criminal conspiracy, document forgery and money laundering. The judge handling the case describes Zapatero as the head of “a stable and hierarchical influence‑peddling structure” meant to “obtain financial benefits as an intermediary, exerting influence over public bodies on behalf of third parties, mainly Plus Ultra.” At least six other individuals are under investigation, including Plus Ultra’s chairman, its CEO, and Alicante-based businessman Julio Martínez Martínez.

The UDEF report says Zapatero and Martínez were at the center of a structure of businesses and consulting firms meant to syphon money coming from China, Venezuela and Spain into his personal accounts.

This latter will be a key character in this story: Martínez Martínez is not only being accused of acting as Zapatero’s frontman in a number of entities that received payments linked to the Plus Ultra (et al) scheme. His own personal records, such as notebook annotations UDEF just made public, suggest he was fully aware of Zapatero’s business and political dealings with the Maduro regime. That evidence seems to point at both opaque trade deals (over Venezuelan light crude, gold, fuel, asphalt, which were the subject of US sanctions until recently) Martínez and Zapatero may have promoted, and knowledge about a number of high-profile political prisoners released this year. The son-in-law of Edmundo González, security expert Rocío San Miguel and opposition moderate Enrique Márquez (who has publicly praised Zapatero) appear mentioned. Martínez´s notes also provide previously undisclosed details about the contents of a constitutional reform Maduro toyed with, but never brought about after stealing the presidential vote in 2024.

All of this adds to the investigations about shady business in the pandemic that involved Spanish businessman Víctor de Aldama, former Transport Minister and PSOE Organization Secretary José Luis Ábalos, and his close advisor Koldo García. The trio famously met Delcy Rodríguez in the tarmac of the Madrid international airport, for a purported conversation over the sale of Venezuelan gold lingots, despite her being the subject of EU sanctions and therefore unable to step on European soil. These three Spaniards (with Ábalos and Koldo being amongst the closest collaborators of Pedro Sánchez in his primary campaign and early government) are the main actors in a series of corruption scandals that have been getting closer to the Spanish head of government, a darling of the International Left whose reputation has been boosted by a knack for antagonizing Donald Trump. But the former aides of Perro Sanxe have been arrested without bail and indicted (and will soon face a sentencing hearing). His brother is facing trial. His wife has also been indicted and is on the verge of facing trial. And now it looks like his political mentor will also face a lengthy process before Spanish justice.

Just after the Zapatero news broke in Spain, predictable reactions began to come across the political spectrum: bloodthirst at the Right, accusations of conspiracy at the Left. Then, the judge made public the 88-page file, fed with a probe that began in 2024, and the ambiance turned in a second. Many allies of the graft-plagued socialist government admitted that the accusations are solid, the evidence overwhelming, and the outlook quite bleak for Zapatero. The conspiracy theory that this was lawfare against the Sánchez government faded away. Spain’s paper of record, El País, traditionally aligned with Zapatero’s party PSOE, wrote a stern op-ed saying that the Sánchez government was forced to investigate this properly to prevent the “enemies of democracy” in the Far Right from charging against the democratic system. “Full cooperation with the judiciary, full respect for the presumption of innocence, and all my support for President Zapatero,” Sánchez said today. 

As you may have noticed, authorities have released more evidence this week. Spanish media ranging from the State-owned, left-leaning broadcaster RTVE to the investigative El Confidencial are carving out a map of the Zapatero network of sociedades mercantiles. While not all of these companies are under investigation, together they received an estimated €2.6 million between 2020 and 2025 from Chinese capital and entities under investigation.

The investigation will likely reveal more details about the dealings between the chavista regime, Zapatero and other politicians and businesspeople close to the Sanchista government.

The UDEF report says Zapatero and Martínez were at the center of a structure of businesses and consulting firms (under not-at-all pretentious names like Inteligencia Prospectiva and Análisis Relevante) meant to syphon money coming from China, Venezuela and Spain into his personal accounts. Money that looks, in many cases, like kickbacks. For instance, Whathefav, a social media agency owned by his two daughters, got a payment of half a million euros for creating a website and a promotional video for Inteligencia Prospectiva SL, which is owned by Guillemo and Domingo Amaro Chacón. These two are Spanish-Venezuelan citizens who happen to be the sons of a businessman involved in a case of insurance fraud with PDVSA. Inteligencia Prospectiva reported losses, but was paying juicy bills to other businesses of the same network, like Whathefav.

UDEF  also cites evidence of conversations between Domingo Amaro Chacón and Julio Martínez Martínez, from 2021 to 2024, discussing a deal with Minerven (coded as “comercialización de amarillo”), nickel reserves in Venezuela, a major tourism development project on La Tortuga Island, and what seems like efforts to promote the opening of the UAE embassy in Caracas (coded as “the desert guys”). All of this may have something to do with UDEF’s suggestion (reviewed here by The Objective) alleging that the Plus Ultra case might be linked to a money-laundering operation involving proceeds from the Venezuelan CLAP food-box scheme, as well as the shipment of 5-8 tons of gold from Caracas to Dubai.

Yes, it’s a lot. And we’re not even getting into other grim details, like reports that Whathefav received a €100,000 payment from the company behind VenApp, which you’ll remember as the mobile app Maduro promoted in the past two years to encourage chavistas to snitch on dissidents.

“I told you so…”

Until that day, Zapatero was able to sell to the Spanish people that he had been in Venezuela not just as a negotiator helping take people out of jail, but as a peacemaker trying to prevent the country from falling into a civil war. Apparently through his good heart and blue eyes.

Suddenly, Spain has discovered that a former president, adored among socialists for his term’s achievements like the disbandment of terrorist group ETA, who left Moncloa Palace with no scandals on his shoulders, and who kept enough prestige to back the rise of Sánchez, is an international operator that used his connections and knowledge to make at least 2.6 million euros in ways that spill way beyond the disputable boundaries of legal lobbying.

Once again, Venezuelans raised their eyes to the sky and whispered with resignation. That “yes, moron, we have known this for years” feeling we are so familiar with. 

This case should remind the EU that post-Maduro Venezuela still harbors kleptocratic networks embedded well within European jurisdictions.

For Venezuelan media, and we dare to say a great deal of the public, Zapatero has been known for years as a loyal operator of the chavista regime who works at the expense of the people to help Maduro, and now the Rodríguez siblings, to preserve power. In doing so, he has kept the boardgame tilted against the opposition. The statesmanship that many Spaniards attribute to Zapatero has served only to defend Maduro’s interests during several negotiation rounds with international presence, and to corner the opposition into disadvantageous arrangements by presenting himself as an arbiter when, in fact, he’s no more than an able messenger of Miraflores. Former political prisoners like Lorent Saleh have recalled how Zapatero pressured their families to keep quiet about torture and abuse endured in prison. All that work, of course, has been handsomely rewarded.

We saw his shadow in the humiliation of president-elect Edmundo González Urrutia, in the Spanish ambassador’s house in Caracas, during his last hours in Venezuela in August 2024. Edmundo was pressured by Delcy and Jorge Rodríguez to sign a self-incriminating letter as a condition for being allowed to leave for Spain. After that, the Rodríguez siblings and Zapatero have actively endorsed each other: one of the Spaniard’s last visits to Caracas saw him declaring next to Jorge and other National Assembly lawmakers as a key international sponsor of the 2026 amnesty law, which Delcy recently discontinued. One of those lawmakers, fake opposition politician Timoteo Zambrano, is another close friend and ally of Zapatero. The latter’s influence looks so significant that Delcy just appointed Zambrano as the Venezuelan ambassador in Madrid.

Bad for Delcy, good for María Corina

The investigation will likely reveal more details about the dealings between the chavista regime, Zapatero and other politicians and businesspeople close to the Sanchista government. It will all depend on what prosecutors can find and prove, but it’s fair to say that a wave of scandals and a thickening of corruption dossiers of this kind could make any democratic government in the world collapse (though with Sánchez, in the end, we’re talking about a man Spanish voters know for surviving all kinds of reputational crises). 

The Spanish government was among the first to recognize Delcy Rodríguez as head of state. As early as January, its top diplomat said he would request that the EU lifts sanctions on Delcy. Just a few weeks ago, the same official confirmed that Caracas would resume talks with the IMF. The Spanish Foreign Ministry used to be run by Josep Borrell, a socialist from the non-Zapaterista faction (the more moderate, Felipista wing) of the ruling PSOE, who has become a vocal critic of both the Maduro dictatorship and Zapatero. But Madrid’s latest efforts to normalize relations with Delcy haven’t gone unnoticed, perhaps encouraged by the Trump administration, and also by Maria Corina Machado’s close ties with the Spanish Right.

With such accusations against a key enabler of this bilateral relationship, the image of normalcy (and common sense) both Sánchez and Delcy are trying to project should take a hit. This case should remind the EU that post-Maduro Venezuela still harbors kleptocratic networks embedded well within European jurisdictions.

We should note this is not a problem where Delcy can turn to the Trump administration for help. Not only because Trump despises Sánchez, but because Homeland Security reportedly gave leads to Spain’s National Police in the Plus Ultra case, in cooperation through the American embassy in Madrid.

A big winner in this case is María Corina Machado, who recently held a massive rally in Madrid’s main square that few Spanish politicians could have matched. Machado was lambasted by Foreign Minister José Luis Albares for refusing to meet Sánchez or other leftwing leaders during her Madrid visit. Throughout her trip, when asked by journalists about this decision, Machado did not name Sánchez but thanked the Spanish government for receiving Venezuelan migrants over the years, while also stressing her utmost respect for Spanish institutions. It is false that Machado only met with the right-wing opposition: she appeared publicly with former PM Felipe González, a historic figure of Spanish social democracy and a key leader of the country’s famous Transition.

Machado may now be feeling some relief about how the whole Spanish saga is unfolding (both Zapatero and Machado have acknowledged they have never spoken to each other).

In another era, she might have summed it up with one of her classic phrases: se los dije.

Murrell admitted the offences at the High Court in Edinburgh after an investigation into the party’s finances.

The former chief executive of the ruling Scottish National Party (SNP), and ex-husband of former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, has pleaded guilty to embezzling more than 400,000 British pounds ($540,000) from the party’s funds.

Sixty-one-year-old Peter Murrell admitted the offences at the High Court in Edinburgh on Monday, following a years-long investigation into the SNP’s finances and the alleged diversion of donations intended to support the Scottish independence campaign.

Murrell, who was the SNP’s chief executive from 2001 to 2023, was remanded in custody by the judge before a sentencing hearing scheduled for June 23.

Judge James Young said Murrell was responsible for a “gross breach of trust” for embezzling offences between August 2010 and October 2022.

Murrell’s arrest came after a lengthy investigation into the diversion of 600,000 British pounds ($810,400) in SNP donations intended to support the party’s campaign for Scottish independence.

Although part of the United Kingdom, Scotland has a devolved government with powers over areas such as health and education. But the country has so far rejected calls for full independence.

Sturgeon, the former head of Scotland’s administration, quit as SNP leader and first minister in February 2023.

Murrell was arrested in April that year after officers searched the home he shared with Sturgeon near Glasgow, as part of an investigation into the SNP’s finances.

Sturgeon was herself arrested in June 2023 and questioned for seven hours before being released without charge.

Current First Minister John Swinney, who was re-elected to his post following the SNP’s victory in local elections in May, said he felt “betrayed” by Murrell’s actions.

“By embezzling from the SNP, Peter Murrell was stealing the hopes, the dreams and the aspirations of thousands of people all over Scotland,” said Swinney.

‘I am betrayed’

Sturgeon, who was cleared in the probe last year, announced in January 2025 that she and Murrell had separated.

In an Instagram post, she said she was “utterly appalled” by her former partner’s admission and that she had “no knowledge or suspicion whatsoever”.

“To be deceived and let down by a husband I loved and trusted has caused me acute pain,” she added.

Sturgeon stepped down as a lawmaker earlier this year, ending a nearly 30-year career as one of the independence movement’s main figureheads.

Former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero is under investigation in Spain over alleged influence peddling and related crimes in the long-running Plus Ultra airline case.

The High Court said on Tuesday that Zapatero’s office in Madrid was searched along with three other premises, adding that the former premier had been summoned to testify on June 2.

The investigation is tied to the 2021 state rescue of Plus Ultra, which received 53 million euros ($62m) through the state holding company SEPI during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The case escalated in late December after several arrests, including businessman Julio Martinez Martinez, known as Julito, who is considered key to understanding the links between Plus Ultra and Zapatero.

Zapatero is alleged to have been the driving force behind the airline’s bailout and is accused of having pressed the Ministry of Transport, then led by Jose Luis Abalos, to approve the rescue.

Suspicion also centres on Analisis Relevante, Julito’s company, which allegedly received the same amount Plus Ultra later paid to Zapatero. Víctor de Aldama, a Spanish businessman involved in other corruption probes, has alleged Zapatero received 10 million euros ($12m) in commissions.

The bailout remained politically controversial because critics questioned both Plus Ultra’s financial viability and the company’s ownership links to Venezuelan businessmen seen as close to the government of then-President Nicolas Maduro, raising concerns about transparency and possible political influence.

The court is examining whether the aid was properly approved and whether any improper lobbying or influence was involved.

Speaking to the newspaper El Pais, the president of the Andalusian regional government, Juanma Moreno, said: “There has never been a serious investigation process, much less an indictment of a former president. This is something unprecedented and will shake up the government.”

The conservative opposition People’s Party has used the case to sharpen its attacks on Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez of the Socialist Workers’ Party, to which Zapatero also belongs. Sanchez’s administration is already facing separate corruption probes involving figures close to the prime minister as well as investigations touching his wife and brother.

Zapatero, who governed Spain from 2004 to 2011, has long been a key ally of Sanchez and has also drawn criticism from the opposition over business and political ties with Venezuela after leaving office. He has denied wrongdoing before a parliamentary committee.

South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa has refused to resign over a “cash-in-sofa scandal” that continues to haunt his presidency.

Ramaphosa, who addressed the nation on Monday to declare his intention to remain in his post, is set to face a multi-party impeachment committee, which will investigate allegations that he covered up a 2020 break-in at his private ranch and the theft of more than $500,000, concealing the incident from police and tax authorities.

The committee’s findings could spell his impeachment; however, parliament has not provided a timeframe for the investigation, which has yet to commence.

Analysts say the scandal, which has been dubbed “Farmgate”, has been particularly damaging for a president who rode to power in 2018 on an anticorruption mandate, after the much-criticised presidency of Jacob Zuma. Now, eight years later, the case of the cash found stuffed in a sofa at his game ranch could be what takes Ramaphosa down.

Can the South African president survive? Here is what we know.

What’s the scandal all about?

In February 2020, burglars allegedly broke into Ramaphosa’s luxury private ranch, Phala Phala, in Limpopo province, South Africa, and stole $580,000. The cash was said to have been hidden inside furniture at the farm – hence the “Farmgate” label.

Ramaphosa has been accused of covering up the theft and keeping private efforts to trace the burglars a secret to avoid an investigation into where the money had come from – and why it was hidden in a sofa.

Corruption allegations surfaced when a former head of South Africa’s state security agency walked into a police station in 2022 and accused the president of money laundering in relation to the stolen cash.

Later that year, an independent parliamentary committee found that Ramaphosa “may have committed” serious violations and misconduct. In particular, the panel found he had failed to properly report a theft to police as required under anticorruption laws and “acted in a manner inconsistent with his office”.

At the time, the African National Congress (ANC) had a strong majority in parliament – with 230 seats out of 400. It was therefore able to reject the report and refused to open impeachment proceedings.

But the left-wing Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) challenged this at the Constitutional Court in Cape Town, which, last week, overturned the government’s rejection of the 2022 parliamentary report and referred it to a multi-party impeachment committee for a full investigation.

What has Ramaphosa said?

Ramaphosa has always denied allegations of corruption and maintains that the stolen cash came from selling buffalo.

Since the constitutional court’s ruling last week, Ramaphosa has been facing renewed calls for his resignation, mostly from opposition leaders. In a televised address on Monday, the president refused to step down.

“While there have been calls in some circles that I should resign, nothing in the Constitutional Court judgement compels me to resign my office,” he said.

“Since a criminal complaint was laid against me in June 2022, I have consistently maintained that I have not stolen public money, committed any crime, nor violated my oath of office,” Ramaphosa said in his address, adding that he has cooperated in all investigations.

The president rejected the 2022 report from the independent panel again, saying: “The complaints against me are based on hearsay allegations. No evidence, let alone sufficient evidence, has been presented to prove that I committed any violation, let alone a serious violation of the Constitution or law, or serious misconduct as set out in the Constitution.”

If the committee does find enough evidence against him, it could direct him to be impeached.

It is unclear how long this will take, however. Ramaphosa has pledged to seek a judicial review of the report’s contents, which, in turn, could delay the investigation of the impeachment committee.

What is the process for impeachment?

If a president is found to have violated the constitution or the law, or is unable to perform the duties of office, South Africa’s National Assembly has the constitutional authority to remove him or her.

Beyond the parliamentary investigation that will now begin into the Farmgate scandal, and which can trigger a vote on impeachment, as well, any member of parliament may introduce a motion seeking the president’s removal. The speaker of the National Assembly would then refer the motion to an independent panel of legal experts to determine whether sufficient evidence exists to proceed.

If this panel decides there is a case against the president, lawmakers must vote on whether to begin impeachment proceedings. After this, a specially constituted impeachment committee is established to carry out a detailed investigation into the allegations. This is separate from the investigation beginning now and could take several months.

Once that committee recommends the removal of the president, parliament holds a final vote to impeach the president. Under Section 89 of the constitution, a two-thirds majority is required – meaning at least 267 lawmakers must vote in favour of removal in the 400-seat National Assembly.

Are there other ways to remove Ramaphosa?

Yes, the South African president can be removed from his job via a no-confidence vote in parliament.

Any member of the assembly can propose the no-confidence motion, and it only requires a simple majority of more than 50 percent.

Ramaphosa would need support from coalition partners to survive a no-confidence vote, however. This has already been proposed by at least two opposition parties in parliament.

Another way could be if his ANC party turns against him, as it did with the last president, Zuma, who came in for years of corruption allegations and was finally forced to resign in 2018.

How strong is Ramaphosa’s position?

Ramaphosa is not only the president of South Africa, but also the leader of its most popular party, the ANC. Nelson Mandela was the ANC’s first Black president after apartheid ended in 1994.

In 2024, the ANC stunningly lost its majority in parliament for the first time following more than three decades in power. Today, the ANC holds 159 of 400 seats in the national assembly, or about 40 percent of seats – and Ramaphosa is governing in a coalition with the Democratic Alliance, which has 87 seats, along with other smaller parties.

But Chris Ogunmodede, an independent analyst of African politics, security, and international affairs, based in Lagos, Nigeria, said Ramaphosa would likely survive any impeachment attempts, “simply because of the arithmetic”.

“His numbers in the parliament virtually guarantee that impeachment will not happen,” Ogunmodede told Al Jazeera.

“It hasn’t been easy, but there is a government that seems to be functional and is showing some signs of reinvigoration,” Ogunmodede added. “There’s a lot of uncertainty on the part of the other coalition parties that suggests that they would much rather be on the side of caution and go with the devil they know, and preserve the government by keeping Ramaphosa in power.”

Despite this, the cash-in-sofa scandal has been damaging, he said.

And, under Ramaphosa, the ANC’s popularity has continued to slide. The party’s national vote share fell from 57.5 percent in the 2019 election to 40.2 percent in the 2024 election, marking its worst performance since the end of apartheid.

The South African economy has shown some signs of improvement, however, and given the Ramaphosa government “something to show for the time that it’s been in power”, said Ogunmodede.

Yet the South African government still faces long-term structural concerns about the economy, the country’s institutions, corruption, crime and other issues, the analyst added.

On the back of underlying anti-incumbency, Ogunmodede said the top court’s ruling on the cash-in-sofa scandal “has resurrected many concerns that South Africans have had about the president and his party, and the political institutions of the country more broadly”.

Andriy Yermak, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s former chief of staff and close aide, is now at the centre of the country’s biggest corruption investigation since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.

Anticorruption authorities named him an official suspect on Monday in an alleged multimillion-dollar money laundering scheme linked to a luxury housing project outside the capital, Kyiv.

Yermak appeared at a Kyiv court on Tuesday for a hearing related to the charges, which are part of a widening probe drawing in other senior figures associated with the president, including his national security chief.

While Zelenskyy is not accused of any wrongdoing, the scandal could potentially threaten Ukraine’s aspirations for European Union membership as it seeks to convince the bloc that its anticorruption drive is on track.

So, what are the charges against Yermak? Are other allies of Zelenskyy also under a cloud of suspicion? And what does this mean for Ukraine’s standing with its Western allies?

What are the charges against Yermak?

Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) say Yermak is suspected of involvement in an organised criminal group that allegedly laundered about 460 million hryvnias ($10.5m) through a luxury real estate project near Kyiv.

Prosecutors are seeking to impose bail of about $5.4m on the 54-year-old while they continue their investigation.

Yermak, who resigned in November, has firmly rejected the claims. In a post on Telegram after a court hearing on Tuesday, he described the accusations as “unfounded”.

“As a lawyer with more than 30 years’ experience, I have always been guided by the law. And now, in the same way, I will defend my rights, my name and my reputation,” he said.

At one point during the hearing, Yermak told reporters that he “owns only one apartment and one car”.

His lawyer, Ihor Fomin, labelled the allegations against his client “groundless” and denied any role by Yermak in laundering funds through the high-end development. Fomin told Ukraine’s public broadcaster Suspilne that “this entire situation has been provoked by public pressure.”

NABU director Semen Kryvonos defended the proceedings, stating that authorities move to issue formal notices only when they believe they possess enough evidence to sustain charges in court. He clarified that Zelenskyy was not subject to any investigation.

But the case has dragged the shadow of corruption closer to the Ukrainian president than ever before. That’s because it isn’t just Yermak who has been caught up in the accusations of fraud.

Have other Zelenskyy allies been implicated, too?

Timur Mindich, a wealthy businessman who was Zelenskyy’s former partner from the entertainment world – the Ukrainian president is a former comedian – has emerged as another leading figure in the scandal. He left for Israel after corruption allegations surfaced last year.

The probe has also brought Rustem Umerov, the head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council, into the crosshairs of the authorities. Umerov, who until last year was Ukraine’s defence minister, is Zelenskyy’s main representative in United States-backed diplomatic efforts to end Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Prosecutors say Umerov has been interviewed as a witness in the luxury real estate development case.

The case is part of a broader anticorruption operation, dubbed “Midas” and led by NABU and SAPO. The operation was first made public in November, when prosecutors accused Mindich of engineering a $100m kickback scheme at Energoatom, charges the businessman has refuted.

Zelenskyy has yet to publicly respond to the allegations involving Yermak. On Monday, a communications aide said it was premature to comment on the case.

Ukraine’s government in July passed a law in an effort to strip the independence of NABU and SAPO, which were established in 2014 after a pro-democracy uprising against the then-government of President Viktor Yanukovych.

Within days, protests broke out against the move, forcing Zelenskyy to reverse course and sign a new law to restore the anticorruption institutions’ independence.

Why does this matter?

The scandal has emerged at a particularly sensitive moment for Ukraine, as Kyiv continues to make the case for military and financial support from its allies in Western Europe and North America.

Last July, US senators Jeanne Shaheen and Lindsey Graham released a strongly worded statement denouncing the attempt by the government to, at the time, curb the anticorruption work of NABU and SAPO.

“One of the most widely used talking points for ending support for Ukraine is that it was awash with corruption,” they said. “We acknowledge that Ukraine continues to make progress on this front and we urge the government to refrain from any actions that undermine that progress.”

Moreover, Ukraine’s bid to join the EU has increased pressure on Zelenskyy’s administration to demonstrate institutional independence and accountability.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz last month cautioned against a quick accession of Ukraine to the EU, saying Ukraine cannot join the bloc due to several key concerns, including ending the war and fighting corruption.

Ukrainian opposition politician Oleksiy Goncharenko said the allegations had now reached a point that Zelenskyy “personally cannot ignore”.

However, Olena Halushka, a board member at the Anti-Corruption Action Centre in Kyiv, said the case against Yermak and others was a “clear example that the checks and balances system really works”.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Halushka said it proved that in Ukraine there are “law enforcement institutions functioning independently and professionally, exercising their powers in defence of democracy”.

“These institutions were protected by the Ukrainian society and European partners from the political attack last summer, and now we see the tangible results of their activities,” she added.

In a survey conducted on May 6 by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, 54 percent of Ukrainians said corruption was a bigger threat to the country than the war with Russia.

A former top aide to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has appeared in court as prosecutors seek his arrest on charges of involvement in a multimillion-dollar money laundering scheme.

Prosecutors allege that Yermak, 54, funnelled about 460 million Ukrainian hryvnias ($10.5m) into a high-end Dynasty housing complex in Kozyn, near Kyiv.

Investigators suspect that funds used in the development may have originated from corruption at Energoatom, Ukraine’s state nuclear energy company.

The prosecution has asked the court to remand Yermak in custody, with bail set at 180 million Ukrainian hryvnias ($4m).

Yermak denied the allegations.

The hearing is due to resume on Wednesday.

“The notice of suspicion is unfounded,” Yermak wrote on Telegram following Tuesday’s proceedings. “As a lawyer with more than 30 years of experience, I have always been guided by the law. And now I will likewise defend my rights, my name, and my reputation.”

Earlier, during a break in proceedings, he told reporters: “I own only one apartment and one car.”

The case is part of a broader anticorruption operation, dubbed “Midas”, led by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO). The operation was unveiled last November, when Timur Mindich, a former business associate of Zelenskyy, was accused of orchestrating a $100m kickback scheme at Energaotom.

Mindich, who denies the allegations, has fled to Israel.

Prosecutors said Mindich and several other senior officials, including former Deputy Prime Minister Oleksii Chernyshov, are “implicated” in the Dynasty case.

They said Rustem Umerov, the head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council and a key negotiator in the United States-led efforts at peace with Russia, has also been questioned and is a witness in the case.

Corruption scandal

Yermak, a one-time film producer who helped engineer Zelenskyy’s unlikely ascent from playing a fictional president on television to leading a country at war, resigned as chief of staff in November after investigators raided his home as part of the Energoatom probe.

NABU chief Semen Kryvonos confirmed on Tuesday that Zelenskyy himself was not the subject of any investigation.

A sitting president cannot legally be investigated.

Zelenskyy has not commented publicly on the charges against his former aide. A communications adviser said on Monday that it was too early to address the matter.

The latest charges come with Ukraine still dependent on critical Western financial aid, contingent partly on anticorruption reforms. ⁠The US-backed peace push has stalled in the fifth year of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Ukraine’s government last year attempted to strip the independence of NABU and SAPO, which were established after a pro-democracy uprising in 2014.

The move triggered rare wartime antigovernment protests and forced Zelenskyy to walk back the decision after criticism from the European Union, Kyiv’s key financial and military backer.

Some lawmakers, including members of ⁠Zelenskyy’s governing Servant of the People party, saw a silver lining in the case against Yermak, saying it served as an encouraging sign of Ukraine’s drive to fight corruption.

“Partners see that Ukraine has an independent anticorruption system that is performing its function,” said Oleksandr Merezhko, head of the parliamentary foreign-affairs committee.

Zelenskyy’s public approval has remained relatively stable in recent months, despite the heightened focus on corruption, with about 58 percent of Ukrainians trusting the president, the Kyiv International Institute of ‌Sociology said on May 4.

In a May 6 poll, however, it found that 54 percent believe corruption is a greater threat to Ukraine’s development than Russia’s war, when given an option between the two.

PORTSMOUTH, Va. — The FBI searched the Virginia state Senate leader’s office on Wednesday as part of a corruption investigation, a person familiar with the matter said. Federal agents also were seen at the senator’s nearby cannabis business.

The search at Virginia Sen. L. Louise Lucas’s district office in Portsmouth comes after the Democrat helped lead the state’s recent redistricting effort.

The FBI said only that it was conducting a court-authorized search warrant in Portsmouth. The person who confirmed the FBI’s search was not authorized to discuss an ongoing investigation by name and spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

Besides the search at Lucas’ office, agents in FBI T-shirts also went into the nearby Cannabis Outlet, which she opened in 2021. Several entrances to its cannabis store parking lot were blocked by unmarked vehicles with flashing blue lights.

Lucas — a prominent backer of legalizing marijuana — has said the store sells legal hemp and CBD products. It has drawn scrutiny from local media amid allegations that some products were mislabeled.

Virginia has legalized pot possession, but retail sales of recreational marijuana remain illegal in the state.

A message seeking comment was left Wednesday on a cellphone for Lucas, who has been a state senator for 34 years.

State House Speaker Don Scott said he was deeply concerned by the FBI search.

“Right now, there is far more theatrics and speculation than actual information available to the public,” Scott, a Democrat, said in a statement, adding that more facts were needed “before anyone rushes to political conclusions.”

Gov. Abigail Spanberger declined to comment. Some other Virginia Democrats were quick to note that the search comes as the FBI and Justice Department have opened a spate of politically charged investigations into perceived adversaries of President Trump.

The context “must be acknowledged,” U.S. Rep. Bobby Scott said in a social media post.

Last week, the Justice Department charged former FBI Director James Comey with making a threatening Instagram post against Trump, an accusation that Comey — who for nearly a decade has drawn the president’s ire — has denied. A separate mortgage fraud case, ultimately dismissed by a court, targeted Democratic New York Atty. Gen. Letitia James, who had brought a major civil fraud lawsuit against Trump and his business.

The FBI and Justice Department have also provoked concerns among Democrats about ongoing election-related investigations, including the seizure by agents of ballots and other information from Fulton County, Ga.

Lucas has been a vocal leader of Virginia’s redistricting effort, which voters approved last month. A sign urging people to “vote yes” to “stop the MAGA power grab” still hung Wednesday on a fence separating her office’s parking lot from the parking for the cannabis shop.

Amid a national, state-by-state partisan redistricting fight kicked off by Trump’s desire to aid his fellow Republicans, Virginia voters OK’d a Democrat-backed constitutional amendment authorizing new U.S. House districts. The plan could help the party win up to four additional seats.

“We are not going to let anyone tilt the system without a response,” Lucas said after the vote. Trump, meanwhile, denounced the results.

The state Supreme Court let the referendum proceed but has yet to rule whether the effort is legal. The court is considering an appeal of a lower-court judge’s ruling that the amendment is invalid because lawmakers violated procedural requirements.

Voting districts typically are redrawn once a decade, after each census. But Trump last year urged Texas Republicans to redraw House districts to give the GOP an edge in the midterms. California Democrats reciprocated, and redistricting efforts soon cascaded across states.

Lucas, 82, has been a figure in Virginia politics since the 1980s, when she became the first Black woman elected to a City Council seat in her native Portsmouth. She now is the first woman and first African American to serve as the body’s president pro tempore.

Earlier in life, she was the Norfolk Naval Shipyard’s first female shipfitter, according to her biography in the state library. The job entails making, installing and repairing sometimes enormous metal assemblies for vessels.

In recent years, she has been the chief executive of a Portsmouth business that runs residences, day programs and transportation for intellectually disabled adults.

Tucker, Breed and Peltz write for the Associated Press. AP writers Dylan Lovan in Louisville, Ky.; Jake Offenhartz in New York; and Claudia Lauder in Philadelphia contributed to this report.

Court filings have indicated that lawyers for President Donald Trump are seeking a resolution with the Department of Justice over a $10bn lawsuit he filed against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

But the trouble, critics say, is that such a settlement would leave Trump essentially negotiating with an executive branch under his control.

Friday’s court filing, however, emphasises the efficiency of seeking a settlement.

In the document, Trump’s lawyers call for the case to be paused for 90 days to allow a resolution to be hammered out.

“This limited pause will neither prejudice the parties nor delay ultimate resolution,” the filing says. “Rather, the extension will promote judicial economy and allow the Parties to explore avenues that could narrow or resolve the issues efficiently.”

How did the case start?

The case stems from an incident that began in 2017, when a worker named Charles “Chaz” Littlejohn was re-hired as a contractor through the government consulting firm Booz Allen.

While working on IRS files, Littlejohn stole copies of Trump’s tax returns, which had been the source of prolonged public scrutiny.

Until Trump, every president since Richard Nixon had released their tax returns as a gesture of transparency. Trump, however, claimed he could not, citing ongoing audits.

The tax returns Littlejohn stole were ultimately released to the media, and in 2020, The New York Times released a series of articles that showed Trump paid no income taxes in 10 of the 15 preceding years.

Other years, he paid relatively small sums, like $750, because he reported more losses than gains. ProPublica also ran stories based on the leaked tax returns, highlighting inconsistencies and Trump’s low tax payments.

Privacy law protects taxpayer information from being released by the IRS without explicit permission. Littlejohn was sentenced to five years in prison in 2024.

But in late January of this year, Trump filed a lawsuit arguing that he, his businesses and his sons Eric and Donald Jr had suffered “significant and irreparable harm” from the leaks.

The defendants in the lawsuit were the IRS and its overseeing body, the Treasury Department, both of which are part of the executive branch.

“Defendants have caused Plaintiffs reputational and financial harm, public embarrassment, unfairly tarnished their business reputations, portrayed them in a false light, and negatively affected President Trump and the other Plaintiffs’ public standing,” the lawsuit reads.

Questions of ethics and legality

But experts have warned that the lawsuit contains flaws that would normally prompt the Justice Department, also under Trump’s control, to seek dismissal.

The lawsuit, for instance, arrives at its whopping $10bn sum by supposedly tallying up media references to Trump’s leaked tax returns.

However, experts say the formula for damages is calculated by the number of unauthorised disclosures by a government employee, not by media re-printings.

Then there is the question of Littlejohn’s employment status. He was an outside contractor, not a government employee.

Trump also has to contend with the two-year statute of limitations in the case. The lawsuit contends that “President Trump did not discover the numerous violations” of his tax returns until January 29, 2024.

But critics point out he had posted on social media about his tax information being “illegally obtained” as far back as 2020, when The New York Times published its series.

Opponents say the lawsuit should be dismissed or at least delayed until Trump is no longer president. Otherwise, they argue it represents a conflict of interest, with Trump fundamentally negotiating with his own administration for a payout.

Controlling ‘both sides of the litigation’

Trump himself has acknowledged that such a payment would “never look good”. But he has justified the sum by saying it would be donated to charity.

“Nobody would care because it’s going to go to numerous very good charities,” he said in February.

Even that, legal experts argue, could run afoul of the Emoluments Clause in the US Constitution, which prohibits the president from profiting off his position, apart from his salary.

Government watchdogs have attempted to stop a settlement from unfolding. On February 5, for instance, the group Democracy Forward filed an amicus brief arguing the court should act to prevent an abuse of power.

“This case is extraordinary because the President controls both sides of the litigation, which raises the prospect of collusive litigation tactics,” the brief explains.

“To treat this case like business as usual would threaten the integrity of the justice system and the important taxpayer and privacy protections at the heart of this case.”

But the $10bn IRS lawsuit is not the only case Trump is seeking to settle with his own government. In 2023 and 2024, Trump filed administrative complaints seeking compensation for federal investigations he considered to be unfair.

One complaint concerns an FBI investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election, and the other is about the FBI’s raid of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate after he refused a subpoena to return classified documents.

For those complaints, Trump is reportedly seeking additional damages to the tune of $230m.