The facts
Former Republican congressman David Rivera, 61, was sentenced Friday to 10 years in prison for a secret $50 million lobbying campaign on behalf of Venezuela's government during the first Trump administration. Rivera, a longtime friend of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, has been jailed since jurors found him guilty in May of failing to register as a foreign agent and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
Rivera appeared stone-faced as Judge Melissa Damian denounced him for betraying his life's mission, saying he would surely have been judged harshly by his many friends had the millions of dollars come from the Cuban regime instead of its allies in Caracas. "Nobody would accept that’s ok and I don’t think this is different," the judge said. "There’s no dispute this money came from the Maduro regime."
The seven-week trial included testimony from Rubio, Rep. Pete Sessions of Texas and a top Washington lobbyist, all of whom said they felt betrayed when they learned of Rivera's mammoth consulting contract with a U.S.-based affiliate of Venezuela's state oil company, PDVSA. Attorneys for Rivera plan to appeal, and in June applied for a presidential pardon. He faces additional federal charges in Washington, D.C., in a related foreign lobbying case.
In an indictment unsealed in 2022, prosecutors alleged Rivera was tapped by then Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez, now Venezuela's acting president, to work his Republican connections to get the first Trump administration to abandon its hard line and crippling sanctions on Venezuela. Rivera and a co-defendant, political consultant Esther Nuhfer, sought to manipulate influential friends, including Rubio and Sessions. Their goal was to normalize relations with the new Trump administration even as the Maduro government faced sanctions over serious accusations of human rights violations. They did not disclose the lobbying work as required, prosecutors argued, for fear it would have ended Rivera's political career as an anti-communist stalwart.
"The United States and the public were the true victims of this fraud," Assistant U.S. Attorney Roger Cruz said in urging a stiff sentence, adding that Rivera used his position of trust and betrayed it consistently and repeatedly.
To hide the work, prosecutors say Rivera set up an encrypted chat group called MIA, for Miami, with his main conduit to the Maduro government: Venezuelan media tycoon Raul Gorrin, who was subsequently charged in the U.S. with bribing top Venezuelan officials. Members used code words: Maduro was the "bus driver," Sessions "Sombrero," Rodriguez "The Lady in Red," and the payments "La Luz," Spanish for "The Light," Rubio was known as "Miss Clairol," because rubio means blond in Spanish.
At sentencing, Rivera's attorneys repeated their trial argument that the former congressman believed he was under no requirement to disclose the work. The three-month, $50 million contract with Rivera's one-man consulting firm, they said, was focused on luring oil giant ExxonMobil back to Venezuela, commercial work generally exempt from the Foreign Agents Registration Act. "David Rivera does not deserve to die in prison because he failed to file a FARA registration," defense attorney Ed Shohat said. "If he had filed that paper, that form, everything he did, including the $50 million contract, which totally distorted this case, is perfectly legal." "There’s not one word in any chat, not one document, not one thing he did to help Nicolás Maduro," said Shohat.
"This is a classic money laundering case," the judge said Friday in rejecting Rivera's motion to lower the federal guidelines range. Prosecutors said the partners backdated documents and created sham agreements, like one to justify a wire transfer of $3.75 million to a South Florida company that maintained Gorrin's luxury yacht.
The political activity included setting up meetings for Rodriguez in New York, Caracas, Washington and Dallas. Rivera roped in Sessions, who later tried to broker a meeting for Rodriguez with the ExxonMobil executive who took over as CEO when Rex Tillerson became Trump's first-term secretary of state. After a secret meeting in Caracas with Maduro, Sessions agreed to deliver a letter from the Venezuelan president to Trump. Within six months of taking office, Trump sanctioned Maduro and labeled him a "dictator," launching a "maximum pressure" campaign to unseat him. Nearly a decade later, Rodriguez has emerged as the second Trump administration's trusted partner after the U.S. military's ousting of Maduro.
Before his election to Congress in 2010, Rivera was a high-ranking Florida legislator and shared a Tallahassee home with Rubio. He faced earlier controversy, including allegations that he secretly funded a Democratic spoiler candidate in a 2012 congressional race. He was also investigated, but never charged, for alleged campaign finance violations and a $1 million contract with a gambling company. Friends of the former congressman, including the former president of Florida International University and Miami-Dade County's supervisor of elections, packed the courtroom to show their support. "I don’t think it’s productive for society by sending David away for a long, long time," testified Liliana Ros, a longtime Miami GOP committee member.
Our take
Let’s be fucking clear: David Rivera isn’t a hypocrite. A hypocrite says they’re chaste then gets a handjob. Rivera is a political whore who spent decades building his brand as Miami’s loudest anti communist cunt, then got on his knees and deep-throated a $50 million dick from Nicolás Maduro’s sanctioned regime. He didn’t betray his principles; he auctioned them off to the very shithole he pretended to hate. What a spectacular, greedy piece of shit.
This 61-year-old asshole didn’t just take the money. He set up a secret fucking chat room called MIA and gave everyone spy-movie code names like a toddler playing secret agent. The dictator was the ‘bus driver.’ Payments were ‘The Light.’ And his best friend, the Secretary of State, was ‘Miss Clairol’ because ‘rubio’ means blond. This is the brainpower of a man who thought a three-month, $50 million ‘consulting’ contract to suck off an oil state was just business. He’s a clown who thought a code name made treason cute.
His lawyer’s defense was the most insulting bullshit ever uttered in a courtroom: ‘If he had filed that paper, that form, everything he did… is perfectly legal.’ Oh, right! The crime was forgetting the paperwork, not secretly working for a murderous dictatorship to undermine U.S. policy. The judge, rightly, called his scheme ‘a classic money laundering case’ because this prick was backdating documents and shuffling $3.75 million to maintain his Venezuelan sugar daddy’s luxury yacht. He’s a laundryman for a tyrant’s toy boat.
Now this traitorous fuck has applied for a presidential pardon. He’s begging Donald Trump to forgive him for secretly lobbying Donald Trump’s administration on behalf of the dictator Trump called a ‘dictator’ and sanctioned. The grift is so fucking circular it should power a carnival ride. He sold out his country, his friends, and every ‘anti-communist’ lie he ever told, all for a yacht-maintenance slush fund.
Ten years in prison is where this cunt belongs. He can share a cell with the ghost of his own integrity, which he pimped out for fifty million dollars and the code name ‘Miss Clairol.’
