The Room Where It Happened

by John Bolton;

  Trump still wanted a military option, raising the question with the Florida Republicans, who were plainly stunned, except for Rubio, who had heard it before and knew how to deflect it politely. Later, I called Shanahan and Dunford to ask how their thinking was proceeding. None of us thought that a military option was advisable at this point. To me, this exercise was solely to keep Trump interested in the objective of overthrowing Maduro, without actually wasting a lot of time on a nonstarter. The Pentagon would have to begin at square one, because under the Obama Administration, Secretary of State John Kerry had announced the end of the Monroe Doctrine,15 a mistake that had reverberated through all of the national security departments and agencies with predictable effects. But it is proof of what some people thought was a joke, when Trump later commented that I had to hold him back. He was correct on Venezuela. Dunford said politely at the end of our call that he appreciated my trying to help him understand how our military’s involvement might arise. Of course, I had the easy job, closing by saying, “All I had to do was make the call.” Now Dunford had the problem. He laughed and said, “Tag. I’m it!” At least he still had a sense of humor.

  Pence asked me to join him in his office for the Guaidó call, which went through about six fifteen. Guaidó was very appreciative of a supportive video Pence had distributed earlier over the Internet, and the two had an excellent talk. Pence again expressed our support, and Guaidó answered positively, if very generally, about how the Opposition would perform if it prevailed. He said that Venezuela was very happy with the support the United States was providing, and would work hand in hand with us, given the risks we were taking. I felt this should satisfy Trump. After the call, I leaned over Pence’s desk to shake hands, saying, “This is a historic moment.” He suggested we go to the Oval to brief Trump, who was quite happy with the outcome, looking forward to the statement he would make the next day.

  He called me about 9:25 a.m. on the twenty-third to say the draft statement to be issued when the National Assembly formally invoked the Venezuelan constitution to move against Maduro was “beautiful,” adding, “I almost never say that.”16 I thanked him and said we would keep him posted. Guaidó appeared before a huge crowd in Caracas (according to our embassy, the largest in the twenty-year history of the Chavez-Maduro regime), and took the oath of office as Interim President. The die was cast. Pence came in to shake hands, and we issued Trump’s statement immediately. We feared the imminent deployment of troops, but none came (although reports indicated that, overnight, colectivos killed four people).17 Embassy Caracas presented its credentials to the new Guaidó government, along with the Lima Group Ambassadors, as a show of support. I briefed Trump on the day’s events at about six thirty p.m., and he seemed to be holding firm.

  The next day, Defense Minister Padrino and an array of generals held a press conference to declare loyalty to Maduro, which was not what we wanted, but which to this point was not reflected in actual military activity. The Opposition believed that 80 percent or more of the rank and file, as well as most junior officers, whose families were enduring the same hardships as Venezuela’s civilian population generally, supported the new government. While the percentage figure cannot be confirmed given the authoritarian nature of the Maduro regime, Guaidó frequently contended he had the support of 90 percent of Venezuela’s population overall.18 Top military officers, like those at the press conference, however, were likely still too corrupted by years of Chavista rule to break ranks. On the other hand, they had not ordered the military out of their barracks to crush the rebellion, likely fearing such an order would be disobeyed, which would be the end of the regime. UK Foreign Minister Jeremy Hunt, in Washington for meetings, was delighted to cooperate on steps they could take, for example freezing Venezuelan gold deposits in the Bank of England, so the regime could not sell the gold to keep itself going.19 These were the sorts of steps we were already applying to pressure Maduro financially. I urged Pompeo to have State more fully support the effort against the state-owned oil company, where I still worried Mnuchin was holding out, which he agreed to do. Pompeo was also disturbed by signs Maduro might be encouraging the colectivos to threaten US embassy personnel and said Trump was as well.20

  The first troubling sign from Trump came that evening after eight thirty p.m. when he called to say, “I don’t like where we are,” referring to Venezuela. He worried about Padrino’s press conference, saying, “The entire army is behind him.” Then, he added, “I’ve always said Maduro was tough. This kid [Guaidó]—nobody’s ever heard of him.” And, “The Russians have put out brutal statements.” I walked Trump back off the ledge, explaining that the military was still in its barracks, which was very significant, and that senior military figures had been talking to the Opposition for two days about what would be in it for them if they came over to the Opposition or retired. Things were still very much in play, and the more time passed, the more likely it was that the military would fragment, which was what we really needed. I don’t think I satisfied Trump, but I at least talked him back into silence. God only knew who he was talking to or whether he had just gotten a case of the vapors because things were still uncertain. I was sure of one thing: any display of American indecision now would doom the entire effort. I suspected Trump knew that too, but I was amazed our policy was so close to shifting just thirty-plus hours after being launched. You couldn’t make this up.

  The next morning, I called Pompeo to tell him how Trump had all but jumped ship on Venezuela and to make sure Pompeo wasn’t about to follow. Fortunately, I heard exactly the opposite reaction, Pompeo saying “we should go to the wall” to get Maduro out. Encouraged, I later asked Claver-Carone to follow up with Guaidó’s people to ensure that they were getting out letters, the sooner the better, to the International Monetary Fund, the Bank for International Settlements, and similar institutions announcing that they were the legitimate government.21 Pompeo thought there was a way forward on the safety of US personnel in Caracas, thus allowing us to retain a slimmed-down mission, which he wanted to do. I explained how State often became so hung up on safety issues that it made concessions on policy issues, arguing it was required to protect official staff. I certainly wasn’t arguing for ignoring risks to our people, but I did believe it was better to withdraw them rather than make substantive concessions to governments like Maduro’s.

  Just after nine a.m., I called Trump, finding him in somewhat better shape than the night before. He still thought the Opposition was “beaten down,” referring again to the picture of Padrino and “all those good-looking generals” declaring support for Maduro. I told him the real pressure was about to begin, as we imposed the petroleum sanctions, taking away a significant share of the regime’s revenues. “Do it,” said Trump, which was the clear signal I needed to roll over Treasury if it was still obstructionist. On our Caracas diplomatic personnel, however, Trump wanted them all out, fearing the blowback if anything went wrong. Mostly, however, he seemed uninterested, which was explained later in the day when he announced a partial deal ending the government shutdown, interpreted across the political spectrum as a complete surrender on his Mexico border-wall project. No wonder he was in a grumpy mood.

  I decided to call Mnuchin, who for some reason was in California again, and he agreed we had to apply oil sanctions “now that we’ve acknowledged the new regime.” I called Pompeo to tell him the good news, and he said Venezuela’s Foreign Minister was coming to New York for the Saturday UN Security Council debate we and others had asked for. We both thought this might be an opportunity for Pompeo to see him alone and get a clear assessment of his state of mind without flunkies nearby to listen in, similar to what we were doing with other Venezuelans in diplomatic missions around the world. Because of the near certainty of Russian and probably Chinese vetoes, we didn’t expect anything substantive from the Security Council, but it was a good forum to generate support for the Opposition cause. Guaidó helped out later in the day by calling on Cuba to take its people out
of Venezuela and send them home.22

  On Saturday, January 26, the Security Council met at nine a.m., and Pompeo laced into the Maduro regime. The European members said Maduro had eight days to call elections or they would all recognize Guaidó, a considerable improvement over what we thought the EU position was. Russia blasted the meeting as an attempted coup and denounced me personally for calling for a “Bolshevik-style” expropriation in Venezuela (an honor!), thereby showing we were on the right track going after the oil monopoly.23 Potentially significant was news that Venezuela’s military attaché in Washington had declared his allegiance to Guaidó. These and other defections brought the Opposition new advocates, which as a standard procedure the Opposition now asked to persuade officers and civilian officials still in Venezuela to bring as many of them around as he could.

  Unfortunately, the State Department was in a tizzy over the assurances it wanted from Maduro about the safety of our diplomatic personnel. This was not about the substance of ensuring Venezuela’s government provided adequate protection, but about how to exchange “diplomatic notes,” completely oblivious to the broader political context. State had also held up notifying the Federal Reserve we had recognized a new government in Caracas, which was stunning. By Monday, State’s Western Hemisphere Affairs bureau was in open revolt against petroleum sanctions, arguing, as I had feared, that so doing would endanger embassy personnel. Western Hemisphere Affairs Assistant Secretary Kim Breier wanted a thirty-day delay in the sanctions, which was palpable nonsense. At first, I didn’t take it seriously. But Breier’s argument seemed to be expanding by the day, with essentially anything we did to put pressure on the Maduro regime leaving our embassy staff (most of whom by then were security personnel, not “diplomats”) in danger. If I were just a tad more cynical, I might have concluded Breier and her bureau were actually trying to subvert our basic policy.

  Pompeo called me Saturday afternoon, uncertain about what to do about the bureaucracy’s resistance. I persuaded him that the Western Hemisphere bureau was simply playing for time; whatever delay he agreed to would only form the basis for the next request for delay. He agreed, finally, that he was “okay if we [went] tomorrow” on the sanctions, which we did. Nonetheless, the bureau’s rebellion was not a good sign. Who knew what the bureaucracy was telling other governments, the strong left-wing Latin America think tank/lobby presence in Washington, and the media? Mnuchin and I spoke several times on Monday. He had talked to oil-company executives all weekend, and the sanctions would actually be more aggressive than he had first anticipated, which was good news. Predictions we could not act against the state-owned oil company because of negative impacts on Gulf Coast refiners turned out to be overstated; having appreciated the possibility of petroleum sanctions for years, these refineries were “well positioned,” in Mnuchin’s words, to find other sources of oil; imports from Venezuela were already less than 10 percent of their total work.

  In the afternoon, we were to unveil the sanctions in the White House briefing room, but I got diverted to the Oval first. Trump was very happy with how “the Venezuela thing” was playing in the press. He asked if we should send five thousand troops to Colombia in case they might be needed, which I duly noted on my yellow legal pad, saying I would check with the Pentagon. “Go have fun with the press,” Trump said, which we did, when my note, picked up by cameras, produced endless speculation. (A few weeks later, Colombian Foreign Minister Carlos Trujillo brought me a pack of legal pads like the one I had in the briefing room, so I didn’t run out.) Substantively, we believed that the oil sanctions were a major blow to Maduro’s regime, and many asserted that it was now just a matter of time before he fell. Their optimism was high, fueled in substantial part because they believed Maduro loyalists like Diosdado Cabello24 and others were sending both their financial assets and their families abroad for safety, hardly a vote of confidence in the regime.

  On January 30, my office filled with people, including Sarah Sanders, Bill Shine, and Mercedes Schlapp, to listen to Trump’s call to Guaidó at about nine a.m. Trump wished him good luck on the large anti-Maduro demonstrations planned for later in the day, which Trump said were historic. Trump then assured Guaidó he’d pull off Maduro’s overthrow, and offered as an aside that he was sure Guaidó would remember in the future what had happened, which was Trump’s way of referring to his interest in Venezuela’s oil fields. It was a big moment in the history of the world, said Trump. Guaidó thanked Trump for his calls for democracy and his firm leadership, which made me smile. Firm? If only he knew. Trump said Guaidó should feel free to tell the rallies later in the day he had called, and that he looked forward to meeting Guaidó personally. Guaidó responded that it would be very, very moving for the people to hear that he had spoken to Trump when they fight against the dictatorship. Trump said it was an honor to talk to him, and the call ended.25 It was undoubtedly a boost to Guaidó to announce he had spoken with Trump, which of course is what we intended. Guaidó tweeted about the call even before Trump did, and the press coverage was uniformly favorable.

  At one thirty p.m., I met with American executives of the Citgo Petroleum Corporation, which is majority-owned by Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, to tell them we supported their efforts, and those of the Venezuelan Opposition, to keep control of Citgo’s refineries and service stations in the United States, thereby shielding them from Maduro’s efforts to assert control. (As I explained to them and others, we were also providing advice to Guaidó at his request in his efforts to nominate people to the oil company’s various boards of directors which, through subsidiaries, ultimately held Citgo’s ownership.) I referred the executives to Wilbur Ross, whom they met the next day, for advice on avoiding the effects of a Russian government lien on Venezuela’s oil company stock that might lead to a loss of control over the US assets, which was right down his alley. (From Moscow, we learned that Putin was allegedly very concerned about the roughly $18 billion Venezuela owed to Moscow; the estimates of the actual amounts owed varied widely, but they were all substantial.) The US executives told me that, earlier in the day, Venezuelans loyal to Maduro, having tried unsuccessfully to divert corporate assets before they left, had fled the US with one of Citgo’s corporate jets, headed for Caracas. I was sure we could expect more of this in the days ahead.

  Even Lukoil, the big Russian firm, announced it was suspending operations with Venezuela’s oil monopoly, which reflected at least some desire by Russia to hedge its bets.26 A few days later, PetroChina, a major Chinese operation, announced it was dropping the oil monopoly as a partner for a Chinese refinery project, thus showing significant unease.27 Subsequently, Gazprombank, Russia’s third-biggest lender, closely tied to Putin and the Kremlin, froze its accounts to avoid running afoul of our sanctions.28 We believed Guaidó and the Opposition would take the opportunity to speak with Russian and Chinese diplomats and business types, stressing it was in their interest not to take sides in the intra-Venezuelan dispute. Within the US government, we were also planning for “the day after” in Venezuela and considering what could be done to get the country’s economy, in terrible disarray after two decades of economic mismanagement (which even Putin disparaged), back on its feet. We gave significant thought to how we could help a new government face both immediate needs for the people and also the longer-term need to repair the systemic destruction of what should have been one of Latin America’s strongest economies.

  A drumbeat of diplomatic recognitions of Guaidó was picking up and we hoped it would demonstrate even to Maduro loyalists that his days were numbered, and also provide insurance against arrest for Guaidó and other Opposition leaders. This was not hypothetical. Maduro’s secret police broke into Guaidó’s home and threatened his wife and young daughter. They were not harmed, but the signal was clear.29 It looked very much like a Cuban-directed operation, underscoring again that the foreign presence in Venezuela, Cuban and Russian alike, was critical to keeping Maduro in power. Protests continued throughout the countr
y, undeterred by the prospect of Maduro’s cracking down. Continuous contacts were being made with top military officers about the terms under which they could come to Guaidó’s side, and with former Chavista Cabinet members, labor union leaders, and other sectors of Venezuelan society to build alliances. We thought the momentum remained with the Opposition, but they needed to pick up the pace.

  In Venezuela, a plan was being developed, which we thought promising, to bring humanitarian supplies across the borders from Colombia and Brazil to distribute around Venezuela. Until now, Maduro had effectively closed the borders, feasible because difficult terrain and thick forests and jungles made crossings all but impossible except at well-known and established border checkpoints. The humanitarian aid project would demonstrate Guaidó’s concerns for Venezuela’s people and also show that the international borders were open, reflecting Maduro’s increasing lack of control.30 There were also hopes that key military officials would not follow orders to close the borders, but that, even if they did, Maduro would be placed in the impossible position of denying humanitarian supplies to his impoverished citizens. Maduro was so troubled by this strategy that he again took to criticizing me by name, saying, “I have proof that the assassination attempt was ordered by John Bolton in the White House.”31 He was joined by Foreign Minister Arreaza, who complained, “What he’s trying to do here is give us orders!”32 Cuba was also now attacking me by name, so my spirits were high.