Trump denies U.S. involvement in alleged Venezuela invasion attempt
President Trump said Tuesday that the arrest in Venezuela of two U.S. citizens after an alleged invasion attempt “has nothing to do with our government.”
“We just heard about it,” Trump said of the widely reported Monday events. “But whatever it is, we’ll let you know. But it has nothing to do with our government.” He spoke to reporters as he departed the White House for a visit to a factory making face masks in Arizona.
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro announced the arrests Monday evening, saying that two American “mercenaries” were part of a plot to infiltrate the country, incite rebellion and apprehend its leaders. He said the plan was to kill him.
Maduro identified the two as Airan Berry and Luke Denman. Photographs of their identification cards have circulated on social media. They were among eight men captured on Monday when their small boat landed, allegedly from Colombia, on the Venezuelan coast west of Caracas — only to find Venezuelan security forces awaiting them.
Former U.S. Army Green Beret Jordan Goudreau, who on Sunday released a video announcing the launch of what he called “Operation Gideon,” confirmed the identities in an interview with The Washington Post. He said the two were former U.S. Special Operations soldiers acting as “supervisors” for a force of about 60 men, primarily defected former Venezuelan security officials living in Colombia.
He also confirmed an earlier claim by Maduro’s government that eight people who were part of the overall operation were separately killed, and that two were captured, when their boat was intercepted Sunday.
Goudreau, who operates a Florida company, Silvercorp, that says it offers paid strategic security services, said he had known Berry and Denman for years. The three deployed to Iraq in 2010, according to an active-duty soldier who served with them in the 10th Special Forces Group but did not deploy with them. The soldier spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
Efforts to reach the families of Berry and Denman for comment were unsuccessful. Goudreau said he has engaged a lawyer in Venezuela and was reaching out to the State Department to try to secure their release. State Department officials have not commented on the arrests.
The U.S. government “should engage and try to get these guys back,” said Goudreau, who apparently did not physically participate in the operation. “These are Americans. They are ex-Green Berets. Come on.”
Venezuela detains two US citizens over speedboat incursion
Colombian authorities and the U.S.-recognized Venezuelan opposition leader, Juan Guaidó, said they were not involved in the alleged plot. Both said they believe Maduro loyalists infiltrated the operation.
Maduro appeared to confirm this. “We knew everything,” he said in his televised Monday speech. “What they ate, what they didn’t eat. What they drank. Who financed them. We know that the U.S. government delegated this as a [U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration] operation.”
The DEA on Monday denied any involvement in the operation.
Maduro also displayed passports, Silvercorp identification cards and images apparently depicting the two apprehended Americans in a lineup.
A former Special Operations veteran, noting that the captured Americans apparently chose to keep identifying information on them, said Tuesday that they probably did not have experience with the kind of operation they allegedly undertook in Venezuela.
Maduro was reelected for a six-year term in May 2018, in a vote widely viewed as fraudulent amid allegations of widespread human rights abuses and corruption. When he was inaugurated in January of last year, the United States and more than 50 other countries that refused to recognize his government instead declared Guaidó, the elected head of the Venezuelan legislature, the country’s legitimate president.
The Trump administration has called on Maduro to step aside, exerting what it calls “maximum pressure” on Venezuela in the form of escalating economic sanctions, and charged that Russia and Cuba, Maduro’s two main allies, keep his government afloat with economic, intelligence and security assistance.
The United States in March indicted Maduro and more than a dozen other officials on narcoterrorism charges, offering a $15 million reward for information leading to his capture or conviction.
In early April, the U.S. Southern Command announced “enhanced” operations in the Caribbean that it said were directed toward stopping narcotics shipments from Venezuela that had increased by 50 percent “in recent years.
