Rubio to testify in trial of former roommate accused of secretly lobbying for Venezuela

MIAMI — The federal trial of a former Miami congressman accused of secretly lobbying for the Venezuelan government during the first Trump administration begins Monday with Secretary of State Marco Rubio scheduled to testify about his interactions with his old friend.

Prosecutors say David Rivera was a mercenary for former President Nicolás Maduro, leveraging his connections with Republicans from his time in Congress to push the White House to abandon its hard line toward Venezuela’s socialist government.

Rivera, who had once been Rubio’s roommate in Florida and co-owned a house with him, allegedly persuaded then-Foreign Minister Delcy Rodríguez – now Venezuela’s interim president – ​​to award him a $50 million lobbying contract to be paid for by state oil company PDVSA. As part of the alleged foreign influence campaign, prosecutors say Rivera was aided by Texas Republican Rep. Pete Sessions and a convicted Cali cartel associate as he sought meetings with the White House and Exxon Mobil on Maduro’s behalf.

The trial offers a rare glimpse into the often improper role that Miami — long a haven for exiles, corruption and anti-communist crusaders — plays in shaping U.S. policy in Latin America. So it’s perhaps fitting that Rubio, Miami’s most prominent politician, spoke out Tuesday about his meetings with Rivera, as the former congressman reportedly helped Maduro mount a charm offensive in Washington.

Rodríguez, who relied on Rivera to organize meetings in New York, Caracas, Washington and Dallas, in an effort to shore up U.S. support for normalizing relations with Venezuela — an effort that failed at the time but now appears within reach, albeit on unequal terms, after Maduro’s ouster and the arrival of his more pragmatic aide, is also likely to come under scrutiny.

An 11-count indictment, unsealed in 2022, accuses Rivera and an associate of money laundering and failure to register as a foreign agent.

Prosecutors say that to hide his work, Rivera created an encrypted chat group called MIA — for Miami — with his main conduit to the Maduro government: Venezuelan media mogul Raúl Gorrín, who was later charged in the United States with bribing senior Venezuelan officials.

Group members used playful code words to discuss their activities: Maduro was the “bus driver,” Sessions “Sombrero” and millions of dollars “melons,” according to prosecutors.

Rivera, 60, denies any wrongdoing. His lawyers counter that his sole proprietorship, Interamerican Consulting, was hired by a U.S. subsidiary of Venezuela’s state-owned oil company — not PDVSA itself — and therefore did not need to register as a foreign agent.

His consulting work, they say, was aimed at positioning the Venezuelan company Citgo in the U.S. energy industry and was entirely separate from his peacemaking efforts, which involved working with Maduro’s opponents to usher in less hostile leadership in the United States.

But plaintiffs in a parallel civil case accuse Rivera of failing to do the work promised and using the contract as a cover for illegal lobbying. Of the roughly $20 million he received, $3.75 million went to a South Florida company that maintained Gorrín’s luxury yacht.

“No turkey” without Rubio

Rubio’s expected testimony is highly unusual: Since Labor Secretary Raymond Donovan testified in a mafia trial in 1983, no sitting member of the president’s cabinet has taken the stand in a criminal trial.

Although Rubio is not charged and there is no indication in the indictment that he acted inappropriately as a senator at the time, prosecutors say Rivera considered him a key ally in his outreach to the White House. For Rubio, prosecutors said at a preliminary hearing last week, contact with Gorrín offered a back channel to Caracas at a time when U.S. authorities detected a possible death threat against him from Venezuelan Socialist Party leader Diosdado Cabello.

Rivera and Rubio met at the senator’s Washington home on July 9, 2017, according to the indictment. Rivera, according to the indictment, told Rubio that he was working with Gorrín, who had persuaded Maduro to accept a deal under which he would hold free and fair elections.

“Remember, the United States must facilitate, not just support, a negotiated solution,” Rivera texted Rubio two days later as the senator prepared to meet with Trump, the indictment says. “No revenge, reconciliation.”

After a second meeting between Rubio, Rivera, Gorrín and others, Rivera remarked in the chat that the bus driver – Maduro – should pay him for arranging the meeting with Rubio. Without the senator’s support, Rivera said, there would be “no turkey,” he wrote.

However, awareness quickly collapsed. Later that month, Trump sanctioned Maduro and called him a “dictator,” launching a “maximum pressure” campaign to oust the president. Rubio took to the Venezuelan airwaves to push the White House agenda.

“For Nicolás Maduro, who I am sure is watching, the path you are currently following will not end well for you,” Rubio said on July 31, 2017, in a rare 10-minute speech to the Venezuelan people broadcast on the Gorrín channel.

The State Department declined to comment.

After signing the contract, Rivera and Gorrín arranged a meeting in New York between Rodríguez, then foreign minister and PDVSA board member, and Sessions, whose Dallas-area district included Exxon headquarters.

Later, Sessions tried to arrange a meeting for Rodríguez with Darren Woods, who had succeeded Rex Tillerson, then Trump’s secretary of state, as CEO of Exxon. Rodríguez sought to resolve a long-running investment dispute and lure Exxon to Venezuela in order to revive the OPEC country’s flagging oil industry. The meeting never happened because Exxon pushed back on outreach.

Nearly a year after helping Rivera make inroads with Exxon, Sessions secretly traveled to Caracas for a meeting with Maduro arranged by Gorrín and Rivera, the indictment says. As part of that effort, Sessions also agreed to deliver a letter from the Venezuelan president to Trump.

The defense team also wanted Maduro and White House chief of staff Susie Wiles to testify. Maduro, through a lawyer, said he would invoke his constitutional right to remain silent if forced to do so, while prosecutors successfully quashed an attempted subpoena to subpoena Wiles, who was a registered lobbyist for Gorrín’s Globovision network at the same time the media mogul was working with Rivera.

Before being elected to Congress in 2010, Rivera was a high-ranking Florida lawmaker. During this time, he shared a house in Tallahassee with Rubio, who eventually became speaker of the Florida House.

Rivera has already been the subject of controversy, including allegations that he secretly financed a Democratic candidate spoiler during a congressional race in 2012. Last year, federal prosecutors dropped the case after an appeals court threw out a large fine imposed by a lower court. Rivera was also investigated — but never charged — for campaign finance violations and a $1 million contract with a gambling company while serving in the Florida Legislature.

Rivera has denied any wrongdoing and said both investigations were politically motivated.