Marco Rubio

Mérida, May 7, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – A federal jury in Miami found former US Congressman David Rivera guilty on charges related to an undisclosed lobbying campaign on behalf of the Venezuelan government of Nicolás Maduro.

The guilty verdict was issued on Friday, May 1. Rivera was convicted of acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and tax evasion. The final decision concluded a six-week trial that featured testimony from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a former roommate and close friend of the defendant.

Rivera, a Republican who represented Florida’s 25th district in the US House of Representatives from 2011 to 2013, was accused by the Justice Department of securing a $50 million contract to secretly lobby senior US officials to improve relations and ease sanctions on Caracas during the first Trump administration.

The indictment, unsealed in 2022, alleged that the former congressman and an associate, political consultant Esther Nuhfer, manipulated political connections to advance the interests of the Maduro government at a time when Washington was ramping up regime-change efforts against the Caribbean nation.

“The ultimate goal of these efforts was to garner political support in the United States for a normalization of relations,” prosecutors argued, detailing how Rivera allegedly tried to arrange meetings for then-Foreign Minister Delcy Rodríguez, now Venezuela’s acting president, with White House officials and members of Congress.

The conviction rested on a series of meetings and communications in 2017. The lobbying efforts proved unsuccessful as the Trump administration introduced its “maximum pressure” sanctions campaign beginning in August 2017.

One of the main highlights of the trial was the testimony of Secretary of State Marco Rubio. In an unusual move for a sitting cabinet member, Rubio took the stand in a Miami federal courthouse on March 24 to detail his interactions with Rivera.

According to reports, Rubio testified that Rivera approached him in July 2017 with an urgent plan. Rivera claimed to be working with Venezuelan media magnate Raúl Gorrín on an alleged scheme to convince Maduro to voluntarily resign and step down as president in exchange for guarantees for himself and his inner circle.

“He provided me with insight into some of the key phrases that regime insiders would have wanted to hear to know this was serious,” Rubio told the jury, referencing talking points he later used in a Senate floor speech about non-retribution. “No vengeance, no retribution.”

However, Rubio, who was serving as a Florida Senator at the time, insisted he was unaware that Rivera had been hired by the Maduro government to lobby. He claimed to have been “skeptical” of the plan, which he eventually labeled a “total waste of my time” after Gorrín failed to produce a promised letter from Maduro to Trump. Had he known Rivera was working directly for Caracas, Rubio stated, he never would have agreed to deliver a rare televised address to Venezuela on Gorrín’s Globovisión network.

The back-channel talks reportedly collapsed as the Trump administration escalated unilateral coercive measures and regime-change efforts.

Rivera’s defense team, led by attorney Ed Shohat, claimed that their client had not acted as a foreign agent but rather as a “promoter of democracy.” They contended the contract focused on commercial work, specifically luring Exxon Mobil back to Venezuela, which they argued is generally exempt from the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).

Furthermore, Rivera latched onto Rubio’s testimony to argue that his actions were aimed at ousting Maduro. “Marco Rubio made it abundantly clear today that everything we worked on together in 2017 was meant to remove Maduro from power in Venezuela,” Rivera said in a statement following Rubio’s testimony.

The former congressman was taken into custody immediately after the verdict and faces a potentially lengthy prison sentence. He also faces additional federal charges in Washington, D.C., related to a separate foreign lobbying case.

Rivera’s trial came amid a fast-tracked rapprochement between Washington and Caracas. Diplomatic relations, which had been severed in 2019 after Trump recognized self-proclaimed “Interim President” Juan Guaidó as Venezuela’s legitimate leader, were reestablished in March.

The White House also recognized Rodríguez as Venezuela’s “sole leader” and lifted personal sanctions against her. Rodríguez took over the Venezuelan presidency after US special forces kidnapped Maduro on January 3.

The Trump administration has also seized control over the South American country’s oil revenues and has sought to force the return of Western corporations into Venezuela’s energy and mining sectors under privileged conditions.

Venezuelan authorities have not commented on Rivera’s trial and conviction. A government social media account labeled a report from investigative portal La Tabla on the alleged Maduro resignation plan as “fake,” but officials offered no further explanations.

Edited by Ricardo Vaz in Caracas.

May 4 (UPI) — U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is scheduled to meet this week with Pope Leo XIV in Italy, with planned topics including the Middle East and Cuba.

The State Department announced Monday that Rubio will meet this week with Leo, and an official Vatican calendar notice confirmed the meeting will take place Thursday.

The Washington Post quoted the announcement as saying Rubio, a prominent Catholic in President Donald Trump‘s administration, will “discuss the situation in the Middle East and mutual interests in the Western Hemisphere.”

A USA Today report indicated Rubio and Leo are also expected to discuss Cuba, which has been subject to a U.S. oil embargo and other measures in an attempt to force the smaller country into an economic deal.

The meeting will be the first time a high-ranking administration official has met with the pope since Trump took to social media last month to brand Leo “weak on crime” and “terrible for foreign policy.”

“He wasn’t on any list to be Pope, and was only put there by the Church because he was an American, and they thought that would be the best way to deal with President Donald J. Trump,” Trump wrote in April. “If I wasn’t in the White House, Leo wouldn’t be in the Vatican.”

Rubio and Vice President JD Vance previously met with Leo during a private audience at the Vatican in May 2025, one day after the pope’s Inauguration Mass.

May 1 (UPI) — Former U.S. Rep. David Rivera, R-Fla., was found guilty on Friday of being paid to secretly lobby elected U.S. officials to ease sanctions against Venezuela.

Rivera and a co-conspirator were each found guilty of taking payment from Nicholas Maduro to try to repair ties between the South American nation and the United States but never registering as an agent of a foreign country, The Miami Herald and NBC News reported.

A 12-person jury found the former Miami-Dade congressman and consultant Esther Nuhfer guilty of lobbying Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, and attempting to set meetings up for Delcy Rodriguez, Venezuela’s then-foreign minister and current acting president.

Rivera was also found guilty of conspiring to commit money laundering and tax evasion.

Rivera had long been friends with his former roommate Rubio and became friends with Sessions when he was in Congress, and after Maduro gave him a $50 million contract he attempted to leverage those relationships.

Both Rivera and Nuhfer were caught having not registered themselves of lobbying for the federal government on behalf of another nation.

The convictions come after a 5-week trial that saw Rubio, who was in the Senate in 2017, when he met with Rivera and was told a plan to convince Maduro to step down was afoot.

Rivera denied that he was working on behalf of Maduro and the Venezuelan government, insisting that he was working to overthrow the now-deposed ruler rather than to promote his interests.

Nuhfur was released on bond ahead of her sentencing, while Rivera was judged to be a flight risk and will remain in jail until he is sentenced.

Rivera also still faces charges in another foreign lobbying case, as well.

April 23 (UPI) — President Donald Trump on Thursday announced that Israeli and Lebanese diplomats agreed to extend their cease-fire by three weeks in talks held at the White House.

The announcement came after the president hosted the countries’ ambassadors for negotiations along with Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee and U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Michael Issa.

“The Meeting went very well!” Trump posted on Truth Social.

“The United States is going to work with Lebanon in order to help it protect itself from Hezbollah. The Ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon will be extended by THREE WEEKS.

“I look forward in the near future to hosting the Prime Minister of Israel, Bibi Netanyahu, and the President of Lebanon, Joseph Aoun. It was a Great Honor to be a participant at this very Historic Meeting!”

During an Oval Office press conference on Thursday evening, Trump announced that Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would both be visit Washington in the next few weeks, though it was unclear if the trips were to occur at the same time.

“They actually like each other, Lebanon and Israel,” Trump said.

U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Michel Issa thanked Trump and Rubio for arranging the rare meeting between Lebanon and Israel.

“This is 60, 70 years in the making and today is really a historical day,” he said.

“I’m going to keep going, working for a peace that we hope we’ll get it as soon as possible.”

Earlier Thursday, a senior White House official told The New York Times the ambassador-level negotiations originally expected to take place at the State Department. Israeli officials confirmed the meeting with The Times of Israel.

The two countries agreed to a 10-day cease-fire agreement after a first round of talks in Washington, D.C., on April 17, which was the first meeting between Israel and Lebanon in decades. The truce is shaky, though, as Israeli airstrikes have occurred since then, with Hezbollah responding with its own rocket fire.

April 16 (UPI) — President Donald Trump announced that Israel and Lebanon agreed to a 10-day cease-fire starting at 5:00 p.m., pausing Israel’s six-week war on Hezbollah in that country.

Trump spoke with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday, both leaders confirmed, and agreed to the cease-fire and to work toward a more permanent peace between their countries.

Aoun and Netanyahu spoke to each other separately because Aoun declined to participate in a call with the Israeli leader because Israel was still bombing Lebanon, CNN reported.

“These two Leaders have agreed that in order to achieve PEACE between their Countries, they will formally begin a 10 Day CEASEFIRE,” he said in a post on Truth Social.

Vice President J.D. Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Dan Caine have been directed to work with officials of both countries to achieve a more lasting peace.

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam in a statement thanked the United States, France, the European Union, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar and Jordan for helping to accomplish the cease-fire he had pursued “since the first day of the way,” NBC News reported.

After the United States and Israel launched the Iran war, Israel also launched offensives against the Iran-backed militia Hezbollah in Lebanon, from which it often launches attacks at Israel.

This week, delegates from the neighboring countries conducted diplomatic talks for the first time since 1993, meeting in Washington, D.C., to discuss a cease-fire and the larger issue of Hezbollah’s hijacking of Lebanese lands in order to target Israel.

Netanayhu said Thursday in a video statement that Israeli forces would “remain in a 10-kilometer security zone, which will allow us to prevent infiltration into communities and anti-tank missile fire.”

Calling the negotiations potentially historic, Netanyahu said that Israel’s chief goal is to disarm Hezbollah and its ability to invade or launch weapons across the Lebanese border into Israel.

“That is where we will remain,” he said. “We are not leaving.”

After the diplomatic talks on Wednesday, Rubio reinforced that a key part of the meeting and now peace talks between the two nations is to end Hezbollah’s destabilizing influence in Lebanon and the wider Middle East.

“We have to remember the Lebanese people are victims of Hezbollah,” Rubio said, also noting that accomplishing a lasting peace “will take time.”