Donald Trump on Sunday appeared to endorse the discredited conspiracy theory that Venezuela’s leadership controls electronic voting software worldwide and caused his 2020 election defeat to Joe Biden.
White House officials have previously said that Trump’s increasingly bellicose policy toward Venezuela is driven by concerns about migration and the drug trade. But the president’s new comment, made on Truth Social, hints that his hostility to Venezuela may also be based on an outlandish, implausible theory ruled to be false by a judge in 2023.
Fox News paid $787m in 2023 to Dominion Voting to settle a lawsuit that was based in part on identical claims about Venezuela’s supposed role in the 2020 election.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Trump’s remarks.
Trump’s post came two days after the Guardian reported that Trump’s Department of Justice (DoJ) has been extensively interviewing conspiracists who are pushing the idea that Venezuela controls voting companies and flips votes to the candidates it favors.
The US attorney in Puerto Rico, W Stephen Muldrow, has repeatedly interviewed former CIA officer Gary Berntsen and Venezuelan expatriate Martin Rodil, who claim to have proof of the scheme and the two have also briefed a taskforce out of Tampa. Berntsen, and author Ralph Pezzullo, were also guests on the podcast of far-right media personality Lara Logan on Friday.
Trump on Sunday reposted the Logan podcast segment, and wrote:
“We must focus all of our energy and might on ELECTION FRAUD!!”
Trump did not specifically mention Venezuela, but the podcast was a rehash of the allegations and was built around a self published book called Stolen Elections, which recounts the theory.
The post came as Trump has sent extensive military resources, including a Navy aircraft carrier, to the region.
On Monday the administration ramped up pressure, designating the Venezuelan-based so-called Cartel De Los Soles as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. In July the treasury department had already named it a “specially designated global terrorist”.
An indictment filed in 2020 alleged that Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro heads the reputed organization.
“Who knows what the process is inside the White House,” said David M Rowe, a political science professor at Kenyon College who specializes in national security. “If it captures Trump’s attention, my understanding is it is part of the process. Trump needs to find justification in his own mind for war.”
Rowe said that narcoterrorism claims about Venezuela have not resonated with Trump’s America First base, which has been reluctant to support overseas intervention. “As a kind of casus belli, a reason for war, narcoterrorism looks extremely weak. An attack on the American electoral system is stronger. If he can argue to the Maga movement that they did intervene in the US political system, it’s a stronger case for war,” he said.
Berntsen, the ex-CIA officer promoting the theory, was asked by the Guardian on Monday about the president’s apparent affirmation of his theory, and replied: “The President knows this is NOT A CONSPIRACY THEORY, he knows the truth, evidence in possession of DOJ.”
A Venezuelan opposition figure who supports strong action against Maduro but is dismissive of the election claims told the Guardian on condition of anonymity that proponents of the conspiracy theory are trying to take advantage of access to the administration. “I think there is someone inside the White House that these people have access to. They might be overselling this crap and there are people who refuse to let go of the 2020 election conspiracy bullshit.”
