Here's a news item that has gone almost unnoticed amid the COVID-19 pandemic and the Black Lives Matter protests, but that deserves attention: The Trump administration may have used funds seized from Venezuela's corrupt dictatorship to pay for the president's useless border wall.
The story, by Univision News' David Adams, says that the U.S. government has seized hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. bank accounts, luxury homes, cars and yachts from corrupt Venezuelan officials and their middlemen.
But that none of that money has gone back to the Venezuelan people. Attorneys for Venezuelan National Assembly President Juan Guaido, recognized by the United States as Venezuela's legitimate president, are demanding that the money be released to Guaido's interim government and delivered under U.S. and international supervision to Venezuelans suffering from the country's humanitarian crisis.
The assets are being held by the Justice Department and the U.S. Treasury Department's Forfeiture Fund. And, according to congressional records and court documents, about $601 million from the Treasury Forfeiture Fund _ which holds a much larger pool of money _ has been used to build President Donald Trump's border wall.
Asked about the story, Guaido's interim ambassador to the United States, Carlos Vecchio, told me that, indeed, both he and the Guaido government's prosecutor, Gen. Jose Ignacio Hernandez, have officially requested that the Trump administration release the funds so that they can be used to help Venezuelans during the ongoing COVID-19 crisis and the more than 5 million Venezuelan refugees.
"I don't know whether the funds have been used for the border wall or not," Vecchio told me. "What I know is that we are doing everything we can to recover this money and put in a fund to be delivered in a transparent way to the Venezuelan people."
He added that he hopes to sign a deal with the Trump administration to create that fund "this year." Much of the problem lies in establishing a legal framework whereby the recovered assets could be lumped together, instead of having to be litigated on a case-by-case basis, Vecchio said.
In December, Congress passed the bipartisan VERDAD Act, which calls on the Trump administration to return Venezuela's recovered assets "to a future democratic government in Venezuela."
U.S. officials say the government holds at least $450 million in corruption-linked Venezuelan assets, much of it seized in South Florida.
U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., sponsored the VERDAD Act and is preparing to ask the administration for an answer on whether any of the seized assets were used to fund the border wall, his aides tell me.
"Instead of using these funds to support Venezuelan people desperately in need of humanitarian aid or the future reconstruction of Venezuela, I am dismayed to learn the Trump administration may be wasting them on President Trump's shameful border wall," Menendez wrote to me in an email.
It's time for the Trump administration to give a detailed explanation on whether Venezuela's seized assets were used to fund the wall, an incredibly expensive project to stop an nonexistent Mexican "invasion."
Contrary to Trump's xenophobic demagoguery, the number of undocumented migrants seized at the U.S. border has fallen dramatically since the early 2000s, according to U.S. Border Patrol figures.
In addition, about half of Mexican migrants don't cross the border on foot, they fly into the United States and overstay their visas.
But, more important, Trump should speed up the creation of a legal mechanism to turn over the Venezuela's seized funds to Guaido's interim government and to monitor their use to help people in distress.
Compared to Colombia, Peru, Ecuador and other countries, the United States has contributed little of its economy, as a percentage, to the plight of Venezuelans. What's worse, unlike Colombia, Peru and Ecuador, the Trump administration has steadily refused to give Temporary Protected Status to Venezuelans in the United States.
It's time for Trump to be more generous with the victims of Venezuela's dictatorship. Plus, the money is there!
