Exclusive-US talks with hardline Venezuelan minister Cabello began months before raid
Written by: Erin Banco, Sarah Kinosian and Matt Spetalnick
NEW YORK/MIAMI/WASHINGTON, Jan 17 (Reuters) – Trump administration officials were in talks with Venezuela’s hardline interior minister, Diosdado Cabello, months before the U.S. operation to capture President Nicolas Maduro and have been in contact with him ever since, multiple people familiar with the matter said.
Authorities warned Cabello, 62, not to use the security services he oversees or militant ruling party supporters to target the country’s opposition, four sources said. This security apparatus, which includes intelligence services, police and armed forces, remained largely intact after the January 3 US raid that captured Maduro.
Cabello’s name appears on the same U.S. drug trafficking indictment that the Trump administration used as grounds to arrest Maduro, but she was not named as part of the operation.
Two sources familiar with the discussions said communications with Cabello, which also touched on U.S. sanctions against him and the charges he faces, date back to the early days of the current Trump administration and continued in the weeks immediately before the U.S. ousted Maduro. The administration has been in contact with Cabello since Maduro’s ouster, four of the sources said.
The previously unreported communications are critical to the Trump administration’s efforts to control the situation in Venezuela. If Cabello decides to unleash the forces she controls, it could fuel the kind of chaos that U.S. President Donald Trump wants to avoid and threaten the hold on power of interim President Delcy Rodriguez, according to a source with knowledge of U.S. concerns.
It is unclear whether the Trump administration’s discussions with Cabello included questions about the future governance of Venezuela. It is also unclear whether Cabello heeded the US’s warnings. He publicly pledged unity with Rodriguez, whom Trump has so far praised.
While Rodriguez is seen by the United States as the linchpin of Trump’s post-Maduro Venezuela strategy, Cabello is widely believed to have the power to keep those plans on track or upend them.
The Venezuelan minister has been in contact with the Trump administration both directly and through intermediaries, a person familiar with the talks said.
All sources were granted anonymity to speak freely about the government’s sensitive internal communications with Cabello.
Following the publication of this story, the Venezuelan government said in a statement: “We categorically reject malicious information published on social media about alleged secret conspiratorial conversations aimed at dividing the country’s political high command and undermining the prestige and revolutionary integrity of Diosdado Cabello.”
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
CABELLO WAS LOYAL TO MADURO
Long seen as Venezuela’s second-most powerful figure, Cabello was a close aide to former President Hugo Chavez, Maduro’s mentor, and has long become a Maduro loyalist, feared as his main repressor. Rodriguez and Cabello have operated at the heart of the government, legislature and ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela for years, but have never been considered close allies of each other.
A former army officer, Cabello had influence over the country’s military and civilian counterintelligence agencies, which carried out widespread domestic espionage activities. It also has close ties to pro-government militias, particularly collective groups of armed civilians on motorcycles deployed to attack protesters.
Cabello is one of a handful of Maduro loyalists whom Washington is counting on as interim rulers to maintain stability while accessing the OPEC nation’s oil reserves during an uncertain transition period.
But U.S. officials are concerned that Cabello could play a spoiler role, given her history of pressure and rivalry with Rodriguez, according to a source with knowledge of the administration’s thinking.
Reuters interviews with sources in Venezuela showed that Rodríguez is trying to consolidate his own power by installing loyalists in key positions to protect himself from domestic threats while meeting U.S. demands to increase oil production.
Elliott Abrams, who served as Trump’s special envoy to Venezuela during his first term, said many Venezuelans would expect Cabello to be removed from office at some point for a democratic transition to proceed.
“If he leaves, Venezuelans will know that the regime is truly changing,” said Abrams, who now serves at the Council on Foreign Relations think tank.
US SANCTIONS AND ALLEGATIONS
Cabello has long been under US sanctions over drug trafficking allegations.
In 2020, the United States placed a $10 million bounty on Cabello and accused her of being a key figure in a group called “Cartel de los Soles,” which the United States says is a Venezuelan drug trafficking network run by members of the country’s government.
The US has since increased the bounty to $25 million. Cabello has publicly denied any involvement in drug trafficking.
In the hours after Maduro’s ouster, some analysts and politicians in Washington questioned why the United States had not also captured Cabello, who was the second in the Justice Department’s indictment against Maduro.
“I know Diosdado is probably worse than Maduro and worse than Delcy,” Republican U.S. Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar said in a Jan. 11 interview on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” he said.
In the following days, Cabello condemned US intervention in the country, saying in her speech: “Venezuela will not surrender.”
However, media reports about residents being searched at checkpoints, sometimes by uniformed security forces and sometimes by people in civilian clothes, have decreased in recent days.
Both Trump and the Venezuelan government have said they will release many detainees considered political prisoners by opposition and rights groups.
The government said Cabello oversaw the effort as interior secretary. Human rights groups say freedoms have been progressing extremely slowly and hundreds of people remain unjustly detained.
(Reporting by Erin Banco in New York, Sarah Kinosian in Miami and Matt Spetalnick in Washington; Editing by Don Durfee, Rosalba O’Brien and Paul Simao)
