Three Democratic U.S. senators are pressuring Trump administration officials for more information on the whereabouts and management of Venezuelan oil revenues under U.S. control, The Washington Post reported today. In a letter to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Sens. Ron Wyden, Elizabeth Warren and Sheldon Whitehouse demanded more transparency over what is reported to be at least $13 billion generated by sales of Venezuelan oil. |
The news comes days after a raucous appearance by Bessent in front of the House Financial Services Committee, where he was grilled about the status and oversight of the funds by Rep. Sean Casten, also a Democrat. Bessent repeatedly refused to answer Casten’s questions, only to confirm remarks made by Rubio in a previous hearing when Casten asked if they were true. Rubio had testified in June that the money is being held in a U.S.-controlled account, with all transactions subject to an ongoing audit by KPMG, though none of those audits have been made available to Congress or the public to ensure accountability. |
The letter is the latest push by Democratic lawmakers for transparency over the funds, with their demands for congressional oversight having begun just weeks after the U.S. military operation that captured former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and removed him from the country. Since then, they succeeded in triggering an investigation by the Government Accountability Office, a congressional watchdog, in late July. But for the most part, their efforts have been rebuffed by the Trump administration. |
According to an executive order signed by President Donald Trump in January, the money remains the property of Venezuela and is to be disbursed only in a custodial capacity by the U.S. government. A State Department official subsequently testified to Congress in April that roughly $3 billion had been disbursed up to that point to cover Venezuelan government salaries as well as supplies for the country’s dilapidated oil sector. |
But in his own remarks over the months since Maduro was captured and removed, Trump has repeatedly claimed the U.S. is benefiting from the money, while the Department of Energy has stated the money “will be disbursed for the benefit of the American people and the Venezuelan people.” |
Should the Democrats take control of the House of Representatives in November’s midterm elections, as seems likely based on current polling, they will almost certainly make investigatory oversight of the oil fund a top priority. In the meantime, the lack of transparency simply underscores the Trump administration’s opaque approach to running what now amounts to an indirect U.S. colony. |
Rubio reportedly plays the central role of U.S. “viceroy” of Venezuela, and Energy Secretary Eric Wright and Interior Minister Doug Burgum have also paid visits to Caracas to hash out deals for American firms to develop everything from the country’s oil and coal sectors to its rare earths reserves. But much of the day-to-day dealmaking has been subcontracted by the Trump administration to private actors. |
Chief among them until recently was Mauricio Claver-Carone, a Miami-based private equity fund manager who served as director of Western Hemisphere affairs on the National Security Council during Trump’s first term and briefly occupied a temporary special envoy role for the region when Trump returned to the White House in 2025. But until his exit in late July, Claver-Carone’s position in Venezuela over the first seven months of 2026 had been an informal one, with no official title or government salary. |
In that capacity, he nevertheless played a central role in forging links with the Rodriguez administration in the months following Maduro’s removal. Among his close collaborators in that effort was Alejandro Betancourt, a shady figure under investigation in multiple jurisdictions for corruption and money laundering, whose company North American Blue Energy Partners is now at the heart of the “deal” Trump announced last month, by which the U.S. will take a sizeable stake in Venezuela’s oil sector. |
Claver-Carone also reportedly helped a U.S. financial advisory firm, Centerview Partners, win a no-bid contract in May to help Venezuela restructure its sovereign debt, though he denied having played a role in that noncompetitive process. The self-dealing doesn’t stop there: Just this week, Continental Resources, an oil company owned by Trump donor Harold Hamm, announced a deal to develop fields in the country’s lucrative Orinoco Belt. |
Trump’s combination of personalist diplomacy with patrimonialist governance extends beyond Venezuela. He has similarly entrusted negotiations with Iran to his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and his friend and fellow New York real estate developer, Steve Witkof, despite neither of them having the experience or familiarity necessary for such high-stakes missions, and despite both having business ties to the Gulf that create conflicts of interest. |
Meanwhile companies with links to Trump’s sons have repeatedly been awarded lucrative government contracts, even as the Trump family’s crypto ventures have raked in billions. And then, of course, there are Trump’s own stock purchases, which have often been strategically timed around his public announcements boosting specific companies’ fortunes. |
The degree of corruption pales only to the flagrant manner in which it is being flaunted. But in every respect—the use of state resources for private gain, the awarding of contracts to cronies, the shielding of public funds from oversight—Trump’s behavior is no doubt familiar to Venezuelans after having lived through decades of a Chavista regime they hoped American intervention would rid them of. |