When Marco Rubio was named secretary of State, many in both South Florida Republican circles and the American energy industry exulted. But one man who bridged both worlds knew he had a problem.
A longtime investor in Venezuela, the main source of crude oil needed to produce the asphalt that had made his family rich, Harry Sargeant III kept relations with top officials in Caracas even as they seized most foreign oil holdings. Donald Trump’s election in 2024 as an advocate of a restrained foreign policy had teased a tantalizing future for Sargeant: an end to crippling sanctions against rogue states while the United States pursued practical cooperation to benefit American business interests.
Standing in Sargeant’s way was Rubio, the Florida senator and son of Cuban immigrants who had long championed a hawkish Venezuela policy in part as a means to squeeze Havana. Trump’s other personnel moves — including the appointment of Mauricio Claver-Carone, architect of a sanctions-based “maximum pressure” campaign of Trump’s first term, as special envoy to Latin America — indicated a tough line on Venezuela would be a second-term priority.
Any regime-change operation that unsettled the status quo in Caracas could have been a disaster for Sargeant, who identified newly appointed special envoy Richard Grenell as a promising potential bulwark against Rubio and Claver-Carone’s ambitions. Sargeant then recruited disgraced former Illinois congressman Aaron Schock to draw up a strategy that would elevate Grenell over Rubio. Together Sargeant and Schock helped to arrange meetings that led to a prisoner release for which Grenell could take credit and which they hoped would overshadow the secretary of State’s first trip to Latin America.
When that did not appreciably move policy conversations in Grenell’s direction, Schock and a business consultant, Benjamin Papermaster, organized a cadre of likeminded major investors and bondholders to fund a public relations campaign that spent much of 2025 pushing the Trump administration to mend fences with the government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Facing bureaucratic obstacles, Schock enlisted Trump confidante Laura Loomer — who denies receiving any compensation for a spate of social media posts on Venezuela — in an effort to push out some of Rubio’s most important lieutenants, including Claver-Carone.
Sargeant’s longtime lawyer, Christopher Kise, acknowledged in a series of letters to POLITICO over the past month that his client had hired Schock for “strategic consulting” but declined to specify whether it related to Venezuela. Kise said that Sargeant did not participate in a subsequent, Schock-led influence campaign and was “focused on his own business interests and distanced specifically from any political outcomes.”
“Regime change was and is a great solution so long as U.S. interests, including those of Mr. Sargeant, were placed at the forefront,” Kise wrote. “Whether Maduro remained or was deposed was thus never Mr. Sargeant’s focus or narrative.”
The FBI is probing Sargeant’s efforts, according to a Justice Department official who has viewed some of the internal correspondence collected by investigators. The official, granted anonymity to candidly discuss the matter, called the effort from Sargeant to shape policy “egregious” and said there is interest within the administration to see some accountability. The White House directed POLITICO to the FBI when asked about it. The FBI and Justice Department did not respond to requests for comment on whether it is actively investigating the influence campaign.
Papermaster, who said he has had multiple interviews with the FBI, and a second person interviewed in its New York field office about the matter told POLITICO that documents they provided to investigators were later redirected to FBI headquarters in Washington. Kise denies there is an FBI probe into his client and said that Sargeant has “always acted lawfully and transparently.”
This account of the shambolic bid to shape U.S. foreign policy is based on internal documents and correspondence, screenshots of hundreds of private messages and five months of bank transactions obtained by POLITICO, in addition to interviews with participants in the undertaking.
That paper trail maps a trip through Washington’s rollicking 21st-century influence bazaar, in which elite credibility and social media followings developed around one cause can be rented for any other. It exposes a modern policy campaign in every step, as operatives scramble to identify (and obscure) funding sources for a messaging campaign that can launder the goals of unsympathetic business interests into politically resonant themes. The ultimate objective: to shape the actions of a president still working out what he believes America’s role in the world ought to be.
The State Department said in a statement that “regardless of the media narrative floating on this particular topic, Secretary Rubio is solely focused on executing President Trump’s foreign policy vision and advancing the three-phase plan for Venezuela.”
Grenell declined to comment for this article. Schock did not respond to multiple text messages, emails, phone calls and a letter sent via certified mail to his Beverly Hills home. An intermediary, Republican operative Caroline Wren, said Schock told her that he would not “engage in a coordinated hit piece.”
In a brief text message exchange, Sargeant said “all of” POLITICO’s reporting was “incorrect.” Kise denied that Schock was “engaged by Mr. Sargeant as a lobbyist and was not called on to perform lobbying services” but did not directly address the scope of the “strategic consulting” work Schock performed for Sargeant.
“The notion that a highly successful businessman, with extensive historic political ties would place Aaron Schock at the center of any effort regarding the Trump Administration or Venezuelan business matters is simply untenable,” Kise continued in a May 8 letter, noting that Sargeant “has direct historic ties to Republican political circles, President Trump and his Administration, and to Venezuela.”
Kise also denied that Sargeant made any effort to stop the U.S. from removing Maduro from power.
“Mr. Sargeant supported and supports the vision of President Trump and the leadership of Secretary Rubio which have now placed American interests at the forefront of Venezuela policy,” Kise wrote on May 28. “At every opportunity, Mr. Sargeant cooperated with this Administration and applauds President Trump for forging ahead with the right solution.”
Papermaster, a political neophyte who turned on Schock due to a lack of payment, has emerged as a critic of the project he helped develop. Kise claimed to POLITICO, without evidence, that Papermaster was motivated by personal grievances against Schock to create what Kise described as a false narrative around Sargeant’s efforts. Papermaster denied this.
The episode reveals a path not taken in Trump-era international relations, and how those pushing for a more dovish approach to Venezuela failed to win over the White House toward their aims. Rubio, who also came to serve as acting national security adviser, pivoted to a more pragmatic policy that reframed Venezuela policy around illegal narcotics rather than the dangers of left-wing authoritarianism. Sargeant could only look on as Rubio and the hawks got their way, pushing successfully for a military buildup that culminated in the January operation to capture Maduro — but today leaves unresolved questions about who should call the shots in Venezuela.
Sargeant at arms
Sargeant’s enlistment of Schock was the latest bold gambit in the service of a commercial empire which began as a small family-run shipping business. Sargeant Marine grew into a major provider of asphalt for companies in the United States, including for public road paving projects along the East Coast.
The 68-year-old Sargeant made his first forays into Venezuelan politics in the 1980s, a former Marine Corps pilot tapped to identify new sources for the sour crude oil used as raw material for asphalt. The country, which had nationalized its oil industry in 1975, vacillated in subsequent decades between welcoming American entrepreneurs to its large oil reserves and shutting them out. Populist left-winger Hugo Chávez, who came to power in 1998, was hostile to foreign operators as he sought to maximize oil windfalls to subsidize massive social expenditures.
By 2004, Chávez blacklisted Sargeant and his companies from operating in Venezuela, a move Sargeant has attributed to his refusal to pay Venezuela’s oil czar a bribe, according to The Wall Street Journal. He could no longer buy directly from state-owned oil company Petróleros de Venezuela, forced instead to work in partnership with government-allied intermediaries. Distancing himself from Sargeant Marine due to family disputes, Sargeant pushed into new lines of business.
He developed the International Oil Trading Company, which focused on investing in oil and gas royalties and leases, and Global Oil Terminals for shipping logistics. Sargeant found a niche selling jet fuel to the U.S. military during the Iraq War, winning attention for his otherwise low-key business when the Pentagon in 2011 accused International Oil Trading Company of overbilling. A Defense Department report in 2018 cleared Sargeant of wrongdoing and awarded his company $40 million.
At the same time, Sargeant built up his connections in Republican politics, donating to moderate Republicans like Arizona Sen. John McCain and Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. As his Florida State University fraternity brother Charlie Crist rose in state politics, Sargeant served as finance chair of the Florida Republican Party.
“He did a great job. Some of his contacts were pretty extraordinary, as you can imagine, so he was able to be very helpful,” said Crist, who went on to serve as both a Republican governor and Democratic member of Congress and is now running for mayor of St. Petersburg. “His patriotism is unquestioned. He’s a wonderful guy and I respect the heck out of him.”
After Trump’s election, Sargeant — whose Palm Beach home is not far from the president’s Mar-a-Lago base — gave $25,000 to the 2017 inaugural committee. Sargeant has been an occasional golf partner to Trump and has offered him advice on Venezuela policy, according to three people familiar with their relationship. Sargeant’s wife Deborah donated more than $285,000 to support Trump’s 2020 reelection.
“Mr. Sargeant has had the privilege to know President Trump and is an avid supporter,” Kise wrote.
Over the course of Trump’s first term, Sargeant succeeded in reestablishing his business in Venezuela. He bought stakes in several oil companies there and reached a deal to help rehabilitate three of the country’s oil fields. He met with top officials, and built a relationship with Maduro — who had succeeded Chávez upon his 2013 death — so warm that then-Venezuelan leader took to calling the American magnate “abuelo” (or grandfather) as a term of endearment.
But Sargeant saw the window of opportunity closing quickly. Venezuela had grown more corrupt and authoritarian since Chávez’s death, provoking a strong response from Trump. His administration imposed a barrage of sanctions designed to punish Maduro’s regime and strengthen rivals in the opposition-controlled National Assembly. That political standoff only worsened Venezuela’s economic woes and sparked a major migration crisis in the Western Hemisphere as millions fled Venezuela, paradoxically entrenching the Maduro regime as its repression intensified.
Unlike earlier sanctions, Trump’s affected the oil industry. The administration banned companies from trading in Venezuelan commodities without a hard-to-get license from the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets. Unable to source crude oil, Sargeant found his Venezuelan operations stalled, leaving his company’s extensive assets in Venezuela to languish unused.
Sargeant began speaking out more about Venezuela, where he wanted to see the sanctions relax again so crude shipments could resume. As the owner of a company invested in Venezuela, Sargeant benefited from an exception to the Foreign Agents Registration Act that allowed him to lobby for his specific company without reporting the activity to the Justice Department.
“Mr. Sargeant, like many U.S. oil and gas interests, did have a relationship with government officials in Venezuela. The purpose was to advance his own business interests and Mr. Sargeant avoided political engagement,” Kise told POLITICO. “Mr. Sargeant complied with all U.S. laws governing any of his activities in Venezuela, and maintained complete transparency as to any of his activities.”
In interviews at the time, Sargeant said he was ready to work with whoever was in charge in Caracas. “Our business is with PDVSA, the institution,” he told Reuters in 2019, using a common abbreviation for the state-owned oil company. “We are not into the politics of the situation.”
American energy companies saw their fortunes improve in Venezuela when Biden became president. Chevron, the U.S. oil company with the largest investments in Venezuela, obtained a special license in 2022 allowing it to export heavy oil to the U.S. and increase production as part of its joint venture with PDVSA. But the license placed restrictions on how much Chevron could extract from the country and barred it from launching new projects in Venezuela.
In 2023, the Biden administration reached a deal with Maduro that U.S. diplomats hoped would mark a rapprochement between the two countries, paving the way for democratization in Venezuela. Under the so-called Barbados Agreement, President Joe Biden would drop some sanctions in exchange for promising to allow fair and competitive elections and accepting deportations from the United States.
Sargeant took advantage of the freer environment, obtaining a Treasury Department license in May 2024 for Global Oil Terminals to resume exporting oil for use as American asphalt. Within months, Sargeant struck a deal with PDVSA to acquire 570,000 barrels.
As Sargeant expanded his Venezuela investments, Maduro was backing away from the Barbados Agreement. His government barred opposition leader Maria Corina Machado from participating in the country’s July 2024 election, then claimed victory even as precinct-level results showed defeat. The Biden administration reimposed nearly all sanctions, but neither they — nor mass protests in Venezuela’s streets — displaced Maduro, who began his third term on Jan. 10, 2025. Sargeant’s license was spared, along with that of Chevron and other major companies, in what many saw as an effort by the Biden administration to avoid disruptions to gas prices before leaving office.
Trump returned to power days later, his basic approach to foreign policy still uncertain. As secretary of State he chose Rubio, a traditional Republican intent on using economic coercion and the threat of military force to weaken Latin America’s left-wing authoritarian regimes. Pushed to the side was Grenell, a former ambassador and acting national intelligence director who had presented himself as a secretary-in-waiting to foreign governments and journalists alike.
When Trump announced via Truth Social post that Grenell would take a post as special envoy for special missions, he named Venezuela among the countries that would fall in his portfolio. But the announcement did not articulate any division between Grenell’s role and that of State Department diplomats, setting up an inevitable conflict between Rubio’s team and someone they saw as eager to undermine and eventually succeed him.
Sargeant turned to a former Republican congressman whose promising career had collapsed nearly a decade earlier when he resigned from Congress under allegations of misappropriating public and campaign funds. After negotiating a 2019 plea deal that led federal prosecutors to drop those charges, Schock found his way into a small but active circle of gay Republicans where he befriended Grenell.
Schock began working for Sargeant after Trump’s reelection, in Kise’s words “engaged in or about February 2025 for a one-time lump sum payment of $100,000.” Financial records reviewed by POLITICO show Schock identifying expenses for reimbursement starting in early November 2024. (Kise denied that Sargeant received any of Schock’s requests for reimbursement.)
Schock told people he had been hired to serve as Sargeant’s primary liaison to Grenell, according to Papermaster, and that his first major task was to help the special envoy upstage the secretary of State. “Mr. Sargeant had a pre-existing relationship with Grenell,” said Kise, and “did not need Schock for any such purpose.”
Maduro makes a deal
Just days into Trump’s presidency, Grenell headed to Venezuela to pursue what was supposed to be a narrow task as special envoy: freeing American citizens being held in foreign custody, in what the U.S. often considered a blunt tactic to gain negotiating leverage in future negotiations.
Grenell was scheduled to depart on Jan. 31, the day before Rubio’s own inaugural trip to Latin America, and State Department officials did little to conceal how much the timing bothered them. At a press briefing about Rubio’s trip, a palpably frustrated Latin America envoy Claver-Carone minimized Grenell’s task as “a very specific special mission.”
Schock had been working to make it a very productive trip for Grenell, according to Papermaster, traveling to Caracas to explore a potential deal that the envoy could finalize in person. Papermaster said Schock focused those efforts on Vice President Delcy Rodriguez, who had previously served as foreign minister and had close connections to energy executives from her service as oil minister. She and her brother, National Assembly President Jorge Rodriguez, were viewed as pragmatic hands whose connections to Venezuelan business interests made them a separate Caracas power center from Maduro.
Schock and Sargeant traveled to Venezuela around the same time Grenell did, according to Papermaster and a second person familiar with their trip. There, Schock and Sargeant met with the vice president and other Venezuelan leaders to discuss a proposal that the government release some Americans in its custody, according to Papermaster.
In exchange, the United States would satisfy a Venezuelan demand: allow Chevron — which accounted for roughly one-quarter of Venezuela’s daily oil exports — to fully resume operations by restoring its Treasury Department license. Schock pushed for one more demand, which according to Papermaster was pitched particularly at deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller’s hardline immigration agenda: that Venezuela agree to accept twice-weekly deportation flights from the United States.
Sargeant used his connections to arrange a meeting with Maduro in which Grenell would seal the deal, Reuters and The Wall Street Journal later reported. The Venezuelan government via its missions to the United Nations in New York and Geneva did not respond to requests to comment for this article.
But those hoping the trip would undermine Rubio were frustrated at Grenell’s decision to arrive in Caracas on a Friday. They had hoped Grenell would travel during the week, according to Papermaster, so that he could conduct a triumphant weekday press conference upon his return.
“The goal of Mr. Sargeant’s efforts was and remains to advance his own business interests and, more broadly, all U.S. business interests in Venezuela. As noted, whether that was accomplished by Maduro staying or leaving was never the purpose of or the narrative involving Mr. Sargeant’s efforts,” Kise continued. “That was the province of those in the political process. His point was and remains that U.S. business interests, not China and not Russia, should be of paramount significance.”
Instead, Grenell took off from Caracas on Saturday with six former American prisoners, releasing a group picture from his government plane as it returned to the United States. The next day, the Trump administration renewed Chevron’s license, allowing the company to continue operations in Venezuela.
“Thank you to Ric Grenell and my entire staff,” Trump wrote in his own social media post. “Great job!”
The ploy proved successful. In interviews after his trip, Grenell insisted that he had not participated in a prisoner swap or paid a ransom, even though critics argued at the time that the Chevron license renewal had essentially functioned as one. Rather, Grenell said the Americans’ release had come only after he had pressed Venezuelan officials including Maduro for reasons behind their detention.
Kise denied this account of Sargeant’s role in the deal Maduro reached with Grenell, telling POLITICO in a May 8 letter that “at no time did Mr. Sargeant negotiate any agreement on behalf of the United States.” In a follow-up letter five days later, he added “Mr. Sargeant did not at any time act or purport to act on behalf of the U.S. Government (or anyone other than himself), and, despite The Wall Street Journal’s characterization, was not a ‘broker’ for any deal.” Kise, however, did acknowledge that Sargeant “provided whatever assistance he could in the background whenever a request was made by anyone in the Trump Administration including Secretary Rubio, Grenell and/or Claver-Carone.”
Upon his return to the United States, said Kise, Sargeant met with officials at both intelligence agencies and the United States Southern Command, the Florida-based branch of the U.S. military that oversees operations in Latin America and the Caribbean. Kise said Sargeant often debriefed U.S. officials after travels to Venezuela.
The quick win for Grenell in Caracas did not, however, produce lasting momentum. A trio of Rubio allies in Congress, Cuban American Florida Republicans referred to in Washington as the “three amigos,” successfully pushed the administration to cancel the existing licenses of U.S. oil companies (including Chevron) in exchange for their support of an upcoming funding package unrelated to Venezuela policy. Even though Maduro agreed to accept a regular cadence of deportation flights, Venezuela began putting conditions and roadblocks on those flights, and the administration grew increasingly frustrated that Venezuela seemed to be playing games with the United States.
Rubio’s profile rose within the administration. He helped shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development. He adopted many of the administration’s talking points around an “America First” foreign policy, alarming those who had seen him as a potential moderating force within the administration and proponent of human rights around the world and traditional U.S. alliances.
Grenell’s globetrotting gave way to less exotic “special missions.” He worked to secure the release of “manosphere” activists Andrew and Tristan Tate from Romania, where they had been held amid an investigation into alleged human trafficking and bring them to the United States. (The Tates have denied the charges they face.) Trump tasked Grenell, a California resident, with serving as a liaison to local officials in the aftermath of the Los Angeles wildfires, and then appointed him acting executive director of the Kennedy Center to pursue “our Vision for a Golden Age in Arts and Culture,” as Trump put it in a social media post.
Sargeant, meanwhile, lost his oil license in March 2025, extended a two-month “wind down” period to wrap up operations that were in progress and scale back his presence in Venezuela as the Trump administration ramped up economic pressure on the country’s government. An ally returned from a trip to Washington with a dire read of the situation.
“Sense I get from this trip is Ric Grenell has completely dropped out of site [sic],” Hans Humes, the chief executive officer of asset management firm Greylock Capital Management, wrote to Schock in late March. “But also no one focused on VZ this second…”
Humes had served as the chair of the Venezuela “bondholders committee,” a group of financial firms that held Venezuelan debt, and was long opposed to economic sanctions on the grounds they would worsen the economic woes that forced Venezuela to take on massive debts in the first place. Startled by Rubio’s springtime ascendance, Humes was eager to help anyone developing a strategy for winning over MAGA to the cause of a lighter touch on Caracas.
Herding cats in Houston
On the afternoon of March 20, 2025, Schock and Papermaster were on the seventh floor of the Thompson hotel near downtown Houston, waiting for Humes’s instructions on how to approach Shell, the oil behemoth headquartered one mile away.
“Put pants on,” Humes wrote in a WhatsApp message as he headed to the hotel.
“And my dancing shoes?” responded Papermaster.
A longtime investor in countries in debt distress, Humes was among the international investors who had begun purchasing “distressed” government and PDVSA bonds after Venezuela defaulted in 2017 on debt obligations.
The investors’ long-term aim of cashing in on the bonds — now are estimated to be worth upwards of $150 billion due to accumulated interest — requires a near-term stabilization of Venezuela’s economy, which has been in freefall for the better part of a decade. While the bondholders have also insisted that they wish to see Venezuela return to a democratic system of government, a more favorable business climate would be of great immediate value. It is a position that has made Humes a boogeyman in parts of the Venezuelan opposition.
Humes collaborated with Schock because he, too, “believed special envoy Mauricio Claver-Carone favored a more maximalist approach toward Venezuela that might limit diplomatic flexibility,” Humes said via email to POLITICO. “In hindsight, that assessment was inaccurate.”
Humes brought Juan González, who served as the White House National Security Council senior director for the Western Hemisphere during the Biden administration, to meet Schock and Papermaster over dinner at a Mexican restaurant in Houston. As an architect of the Barbados Agreement that delivered some sanctions relief for Caracas, González had been criticized by hawks for being too soft on left-wing adversaries of the United States in the Western Hemisphere. His defenders insisted he favored a more pragmatic approach to threats from China in the Western Hemisphere that incentivized lasting cooperation between the U.S. and the region.
Gonzalez told POLITICO that he was paid by Greylock Capital to provide “regional geopolitical analysis” on a contract basis. He also said in that email that he speaks “regularly with a broad range of actors on Venezuela — across the political spectrum in both the United States and Venezuela — to better understand developments on the ground.” He insisted that none of his work involved “lobbying, representation or FARA work,” a reference to the Foreign Agents Registration Act, and that his relationship with Humes began well after he left the Biden administration. Gonzalez said his interactions with Schock and Papermaster were limited.
Humes was not the only new ally in Schock’s quest. Schock and Papermaster went to Houston to court U.S. oil companies called “majors” in the industry, according to Humes, hoping to get more of them on board. While some American businesses shut out of the petrostate dreamed of displacing Maduro to usher in a new era of open-ended energy exploration, those who had investments there usually were more interested in improving the operating environment there rather than upending it.
“Unless the ‘hawks’ are shareholders in these companies, their interests are entirely different,” said Ellen Wald, an analyst with the Atlantic Council think tank’s Global Energy Center in Washington.
Schock and Papermaster encountered executives from the major oil companies in restaurants around Houston, according to contemporaneous documentation and multiple participants in the meetings. Shell rejected their entreaties, but Chevron — at the time the only U.S. major allowed to operate in Venezuela under its Treasury Department license, producing around 200,000 barrels a day — was receptive. Like Sargeant, Chevron faced a deadline of May 27, when the “wind down” period would end, to win a deal that would allow its license to continue without interruption. (González specified that Chevron executives were not at the Mexican restaurant where he, Schock, Papermaster and Humes discussed coordinating on Venezuela policy, though Papermaster disputes that.)
Shell did not respond to a request for comment. Chevron declined to answer specific questions about the role in the campaign but reiterated that it operates in Venezuela in compliance with all relevant laws and regulations.
“Chevron needs to decide how important this is to them,” Schock wrote to Sargeant and Wren, the Republican operative, a few days later. “Fight and win. Or whine and lose.” (Kise argued that the “mere ‘existence’ of a group chat” does not prove that Sargeant was involved in the campaign. Schock was “engaged in other business and political activities unrelated to Mr. Sargeant and there would, not surprisingly, be evidence of some issue overlap,” wrote Kise.)
Chevron promised to contribute $100,000 to the effort, according to the messages between Schock, Papermaster, Humes and others. Other money followed, much of it from members of the Venezuela bondholders’ committee. Participants said that Curaçao Refinery Utilities, a subsidiary of Curaçao’s state-owned oil company which had long partnered with PDVSA, put up $200,000, messages reviewed by POLITICO reveal. One of the investors funneled $80,000 through a Taiwan-based company known as Smart Property Solutions LTD, according to messages between Humes, Schock and Papermaster. Contributions of $50,000 each came from London-based investment firm Fidera and Mangart Capital Management/Mangart Select Fund, a Switzerland-based hedge fund. (Curaçao Refinery Utilities and Smart Property Solutions could not be reached for comment, despite sustained efforts to identify websites, phone numbers, inquiry forms or employee contact information for them.)
Humes created a chat on encrypted messaging platform Signal to gather the varied crew of players who had identified their shared interest in repairing U.S. relations with Maduro’s government. Representatives for Mangart and Fidera, whose executives joined the chat, declined to comment on their role. No one from Chevron ever participated in the chat.
Over the coming months, individuals would circle in and out of the chat, with Humes controlling access. At different points, the chat contained various academics, lobbyists and private equity investors. Humes labeled the group “Cats,” which one participant called a reference to the expression “herding cats.”
The May 27 deadline gave Chevron and Sargeant two months to steer elite public opinion about Venezuela’s future in a more dovish direction before they found their businesses indefinitely shut out of production in Venezuela.
“I can only hope that the consequences of these tried and failed policy decisions are truly understood by yourselves and the respective departments that you head. As seen in the previous iteration of ‘Maximum Pressure,’ sanctions did nothing to instill regime change, but rather pushed Venezuela into a close relationship with our strategic adversaries,” Sargeant wrote in a March 28 letter to Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent obtained by POLITICO. (The Treasury Department did not respond to a request for comment on the letter.)
“We know first hand that as soon as we are unable to lift Venezuelan asphalt, those barrels that have helped maintain consistent pricing in the United States asphalt market will instead be made into fuel oil and sold to Chinese companies at steep discounts,” he continued. “Again, helping our adversaries and harming American companies, taxpayers and our very own national security. This is truly an America Last strategy.”
Kise said that Sargeant has “no recollection of Schock’s involvement” in the editing of that letter, which according to messages POLITICO reviewed was discussed between Papermaster, Schock and Ali Rahman, the general counsel of Sargeant’s Global Oil Management Group company. That said, he added “that involvement would nonetheless be fully consistent with what Schock was engaged to provide, namely, strategic input.”
Schock began identifying himself as part of Global Oil Terminals, according to WhatsApp screenshots seen by POLITICO. Meanwhile, Papermaster set up a Wyoming-based company to centralize his business activities with Schock, which also included real estate and hospitality projects unrelated to Sargeant.
Kise denied that Schock was ever employed by Global Oil Terminals. “To the extent Schock held himself out as an employee of a Sargeant company, he was never authorized to do so,” Kise wrote in his May 8 letter. Kise said that Sargeant was not aware Schock had presented himself that way.
Sargeant paid Schock a $100,000 retainer. Papermaster has claimed Sargeant then shifted Schock’s compensation to reimburse living expenses in place of a retainer. Over the five months beginning March 6, Schock billed Sargeant for $185,000 in charges, which included flights, meals and hotel stays, according to financial records reviewed by POLITICO. Kise denied that Sargeant ever received requests for reimbursement from Schock, including for living expenses, and POLITICO could not independently verify whether those sums were actually reimbursed.
Anatomy of an influence operation
Grenell made the rounds on conservative media and at speaking engagements over the course of the spring, delivering a case that the administration was not in fact pursuing the maximum pressure campaign many expected to see from Rubio. But he was largely alone among prominent figures in Trump’s orbit.
After learning that top administration officials would be meeting at the White House to discuss Venezuela policy, Schock and his allies activated an influence operation they had begun building in March to change Washington’s conversation about the subject. In an April 6 message via WhatsApp, Schock said he wanted to “respond and add jet fuel to certain themes” he expected would come up at the next day’s White House meeting.
Schock had already recruited the Paris-based public relations firm Forward Global to assemble a coalition that could exert public and private pressure on Trump’s White House, won over by the company’s claims that it had previous success with the Trump administration.
“Central to the strategy is the encouragement of U.S. investment, particularly by major companies such as Chevron, in Venezuela’s energy sector,” Forward Global wrote in a proposal. “By promoting U.S. corporate leadership in Venezuela, the administration ensures that only companies aligned with U.S. values can thrive in the region, helping to stabilize the country and bolster democratic norms.”
Forward Global partner Mike Rubino, an adviser to Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, is referenced repeatedly in messages and was a part of the “Cats” chat. He and partner Thomas Mathiasen handled the firm’s work on Venezuela.
“Our engagement last spring with Mr. Sargeant, Mr. Schock, and Mr. Papermaster was a specific advisory campaign related to a communications and brand management program in support of President Trump and the U.S.’ energy policy in Venezuela,” Forward Global said in a statement. Kise insisted Sargeant had nothing to do with the Forward Global effort.
Forward Global’s proposal outlined a strategy heavily reliant on “influencer engagement,” offering a list of prominent online conservative voices it said it could tap to promote and amplify the bondholders’ desired messaging on Venezuela. “Forward Global will equip our network of social media influencers with relevant messaging to post to their platforms and engage with their followers during inflection points in the campaign,” read the firm’s proposal. That proposal included a list of influential conservative voices that Forward Global said it could enlist to write supportive articles.
Once the agreement was signed, Forward Global billed the group $422,500 to cover the first stages of the campaign, as detailed in a March 26, 2025, invoice obtained by POLITICO.
Footing the bill were some of the bondholders and aligned investors. Humes helped push his fellow investors to supply money to the Forward Global partnership, though not contributing funds himself. Kise said neither Sargeant nor his companies ever participated.
Paid a $15,000 “influencer retainer” for its work on the Venezuela campaign, Forward Global set out to secure the involvement of those with significant right-leaning audiences online. They included Students for Trump co-founder Ryan Fournier and Juanita Broaddrick, one of the women who in the 1990s accused former President Bill Clinton of rape (Clinton denied those allegations). Broaddrick posted on X five times about Venezuela over the course of a month, each time writing a similar message that Trump was “securing U.S. energy interests in Venezuela” and stabilizing the country over time. Each of their posts was sent by Forward Global employees to a WhatsApp chat where they coordinated with Schock and Papermaster.
“It is disappointing to see a party with whom we were under contract not honor the same level of confidentiality and improperly disseminate internal communications and work product,” Forward Global said in its statement.
Fournier and Broaddrick did not respond to requests for comment. It is unclear how much money any of the figures were paid for their posts.
In a smaller Signal group without Sargeant, called “Narrative Architects,” Forward Global staffers worked with Schock and Papermaster to organize an elite messaging campaign around three themes, mixing arguments about the policy consequences of potential regime change and impugning Rubio’s motivations for backing it.
The strategic objective, participants in the Signal group agreed, was to encourage Trump to stick with his deal-making instincts and pursue a constructive relationship with Venezuela.
Forward Global staffers drafted opinion articles to which they hoped prominent Trump allies would attach their names. But after Humes concluded the essays often lacked depth, Schock and Papermaster sought out help from González and Venezuela-based analyst Elias Ferrer to edit them and add context. (Ferrer, who founded the research firm Orinoco Research and the “independent digital media outlet” Guacayama, did not respond to a request for comment.)
González’s work appeared under the byline of former Trump national security adviser Robert O’Brien, who published an April 24 article on the Fox News website with the headline “America needs a Venezuela deal that only President Trump can deliver.” Documents reviewed by POLITICO reveal that O’Brien’s article was based on a draft from Forward Global later edited by González.
González said in an email that he “provided informal feedback on drafts because I believed the policy debate would benefit from a more realistic discussion of the tradeoffs involved.” He added that he was not working for Humes at the time and did not receive compensation for his contributions to the Venezuela project. O’Brien’s firm, American Global Strategies, did not respond to a request for comment about his participation in the Venezuela campaign or his relationship with Chevron.
“My longstanding public position has been that Venezuela needs a democratic transition, but that forced regime change is likely to produce instability rather than durable reform,” González said. “My input reflected positions I have articulated publicly for years regarding the need for negotiated pathways to democratic transition and the limits of coercive approaches.”
Some on Forward Global’s list of desired endorsers did not go along with the plan. Former Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway does not write “one off op-eds on these types of issues,” Forward Global’s Mathiasen reported to Schock after communicating with her. Conway did not respond to a request for comment.
Fox News host Rachel Campos-Duffy, the wife of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, also resisted putting her name on arguments that Forward Global had crafted. When presented a draft article, Campos-Duffy balked, citing her husband’s position in Trump’s administration and her personal views in favor of a democratic transition in Venezuela, according to a message from Mathiasen in the WhatsApp chat with Forward Global staffers, Schock and Papermaster. She wanted to make sure her piece argued that “Trump needs to continue to pressure him including DOJ,” relayed Mathiasen, and to argue that “a thriving Venezuela will help fix the us [sic] migration issue.”
Schock wrote to Mathiasen and other Forward Global employees that “her plan won’t work.” He claimed inaccurately that “there are 15 million Venezuelan’s [sic] who live in the country” and that “you can’t suffocate Maduro without causing them to leave.” (Venezuela’s population is closer to 28 million.)
“He must be allowed to leave office.overtime [sic],” Schock wrote. “That is Trump’s plan. Having her argue the alternative will not be welcomed … it’s not helpful for her to continue this Rubio pipe dream and fallacy. Sorry.”
After watching a Campos-Duffy interview on her Fox Noticias show with Machado, the opposition leader who prioritized a transition to democracy over economic investment, Forward Global and Schock and Papermaster decided to stop pursuing an opinion piece from the host, according to messages between them. Campos-Duffy and Fox News did not respond to a request for comment.
But much of the campaign was a success, as over the course of April, the partnership nurtured a high-low chorus of Trump-friendly voices, where influencers echoed and amplified op-eds that the group had created. The pieces largely made the case that the U.S. needed to consider its energy interests in Venezuela and ensure American companies would not lose ground to China in Venezuela. Influencers helped expand the ideas’ reach from conservative news sites to the broader MAGA coalition, helping to create an impression that Grenell’s policy agenda had real grassroots support.
On April 29, the Daily Caller published an op-ed from Republican strategist Andy Surabian, a longtime Trump-affiliated operative and close adviser to JD Vance and Donald Trump Jr., arguing that “a stronger Venezuelan economy driven by American investment means fewer Venezuelans seeking to illegally cross our borders in search of better opportunities.” Schock had first tried “pitching Andy’s to Fox News,” as he reported to his collaborators via text message.
Shortly after Surabian’s op-ed was published, Andrew Pollack shared it with his approximately 300,000 followers on the social media platform X. The Trump-backing father of a 2018 Parkland, Florida, school shooting victim, Pollack frequently posted about gun rights and school security issues but rarely Latin American geopolitics. “At the core of Trump’s Venezuela policy is undeniable truth,” he wrote on April 29, with a link to Surabian’s op-ed. “American interests come first. His leadership creates jobs, strengthens our economy, and reduces illegal migration — proof that results trump ideology.”
In their messages to Schock, Forward Global employees claimed credit for both Surabian’s article and the Pollack post. (Pollack denied that he was being paid by Forward Global or that his Venezuela posts were part of an organized campaign. Surabian did not respond to a request for comment.)
The names of the oil companies and financial institutions that funded the campaign were never fully revealed, as some concealed their spending via shell companies. Schock’s personal calendar, a copy of which was obtained by POLITICO, reflects meetings regularly over the course of 2025 with Chevron vice president of government affairs Karen Knutson. (Knutson, now vice president of government affairs at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, did not respond to a request for comment on her role.) Mathiasen asked Schock if Chevron CEO Mike Wirth — who was publicly pushing for his company’s license to be extended, though stopping short of making broader pronouncements on Venezuela policy — could appear on Trump-friendly shows and podcasts. Schock did not respond to the question.
Those working on the campaign took pains to keep Chevron’s role hidden, given the potential political costs of being perceived to be working with a U.S. oil industry seen as a villain in parts of Venezuelan society.
“My only concern is about specific mention of Chevron,” González wrote to Papermaster in a chat where they reviewed the Forward Global drafts. “Otherwise it clearly comes across as a campaign.”
Going on the attack
Grenell was aware that he was receiving backup from a well-funded influence campaign, according to messages from at least two participants in the chats.
On April 22, Mathiasen reported to others in the Narrative Architects group that “our influencer, Terrence Williams, just got a message from Grennell [sic] about his post,” which claimed that preventing U.S. companies from drilling represented a “gift” to U.S. adversaries like China, Iran and Russia. Grenell, according to Mathiasen, “said it’s perfect. And keep the momentum going.” (Williams, a conservative comedian who appears frequently on Fox News, did not respond to a request for comment sent via a representative.)
“He just left us at The Ned,” Schock replied, suggesting he had updated Grenell about the effort in person at a private club popular with D.C. conservatives.
“We’re giving him good cover,” Mathiasen wrote, apparently referring to Grenell.
Meanwhile, Grenell was struggling to keep a hand shaping Trump’s foreign policy. Humes reported to Schock and Papermaster in early April that he was “definitely getting vibe they all are definitely more skeptical that Ric can deliver with everything else they are hearing or reading.”
After the White House pulled New York Rep. Elise Stefanik’s nomination to serve as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, speculation arose that Trump could name Grenell the ambassador.
The possibility rattled those working on the Venezuela campaign, as it would marginalize their most trusted ally among policymakers. They were also frustrated to learn that Trump was looking to name Victor Cervino, a Cuban American former Rubio staffer and maximum pressure hardliner, as the senior director for the Western Hemisphere on the White House National Security Council, responsible for implementing Venezuela policy that Claver-Carone and Rubio shaped through the policy process.
“If Ric goes to UN, he’s off VZ,” Humes wrote to Schock and Papermaster. “And if it’s true Cervino gets Western Hem in WH, it’s over.”
Grenell quickly squashed the rumors that he could be headed to the United Nations post,
Trump named Cervino to the White House National Security Council in April. Cervino could not be reached for comment.
“Super hardliner,” Humes wrote. “Smarter and acts with more guile than Rubio or his staff.”
When Cervino was ousted from his post before even assuming the job, the campaign got an idea about how to go on the offensive against Claver-Carone, the Rubio ally who was seen as a likely implementer of Rubio’s pressure campaign against Venezuela. They assumed that Cervino had been targeted by Loomer, a far-right influencer expert at waging social media campaigns against administration figures she characterized as insufficiently committed to Trump’s foreign policy objectives.
“We should enlist Laura Loomer to go after Claver,” Humes wrote on April 4. He shared a screenshot of a POLITICO article about Loomer’s role catalyzing a purge of National Security Council staffers after a journalist was included on a Signal chat where administration officials discussed a strike against Houthi militants in Yemen.
Claver-Carone would be significantly harder to topple. His role was housed under the State Department, meaning that he reported to Rubio, not Trump. But Forward Global prepared to get “Laura Loomer on board,” as Papermaster put it in a message.
“You guys paid some twitter chick on Monday,” Papermaster wrote in a separate Signal message to Rahman, the general counsel for Sargeant’s Global Oil Management Group company, an almost-certain reference to Loomer. Two days later, Rahman confirmed to Papermaster that the payment had gone out. Loomer denied in an interview that she was part of the influence operation or paid by Schock. Rahman declined to comment.
Sargeant “considers Laura Loomer a good friend,” said Kise. “He views her as a great investigative journalist, a conservative Republican and an avid Trump supporter. Mr. Sargeant has never paid her for anything.”
Loomer began posting about Venezuela in May. Her posts promoted American energy interests in Venezuela, as she argued the U.S. risked being outflanked there by Chinese firms. She also regularly promoted interviews Grenell gave where the special envoy downplayed any chance the Chevron license would be revoked as part of a broader hawkish turn on Venezuela.
“In our neighborhood, we want to make sure that the Chinese are not coming in and taking oil and minerals and gold and keeping us on the outside,” Grenell said on a May 20 episode of former Trump adviser Steve Bannon’s “War Room” show. “President Trump is just very clear about — sanctions penalize American companies … We want to put America first and do what’s best for America.”
Alongside a link to that Grenell interview in a long X post, Loomer fingered Claver-Carone as a main opponent of Grenell’s efforts. She accused Claver-Carone of pushing to block the extension of the Chevron license because he is a “Hispanic individual who is putting their own emotions regarding” Maduro “over the interests of the United States.”
Claver-Carone’s departure came shortly afterwards, though it does not appear that Loomer’s posts prompted either Rubio or Trump to force him out. Claver-Carone told The Miami Herald in an interview published on May 22 that he would leave his post by the end of the month, part of a longstanding plan based on his status as a temporary government employee. He added that the joint appointment of Rubio as acting national security adviser meant he was no longer needed as a “bridge” between State and the White House. Claver-Carone declined to comment about the circumstances of his departure.
The public infighting on the issue among prominent figures in Trump’s orbit drew attention — Fortune called it the “Trump team’s ‘Game of Thrones’ on Venezuela” — even as the Trump administration denied there were any tensions between Rubio and Grenell. The unusual amount of detail Loomer’s posts included about Venezuela’s oil industry raised suspicions that she had been enlisted to do someone else’s bidding.
“I am actually very qualified, and I’m highly accomplished,” Loomer told The New Yorker after the magazine quoted an unnamed Trump-connected lobbyist speculating that she was being paid for the posts. “These people constantly disparage me like I’m some kind of no-name floozy.”
In fact, Rubino reported to the WhatsApp group chat with Forward Global and Schock and Papermaster on May 10, “Loomer is doing it for virtually free…She’s allowing us to script her now.”
Whatever footing those favoring better relations with Venezuela thought they gained after Claver-Carone’s departure eroded quickly. They misunderstood a central truth about Trump foreign policy today — that in his second presidency, Trump feels especially empowered to define what MAGA means, even if here it involved overruling what some of his true believers thought was the natural offshoot of his noninterventionist foreign policy views. Control of influencers proved to be of illusory value around a White House where decisions are often informed by personal loyalty and direct access to the president.
The group also underestimated Rubio, who came to win the president’s trust despite their history as one-time rivals. In May, Trump hailed Rubio, who at the time was also serving as both acting administrator of the now-defunct U.S. Agency for International Development and the acting National Archivist, as “unbelievable.”“When I have a problem, I call up Marco, he gets it solved. He gets it solved,” Trump added in remarks on May 1.
More importantly, Rubio also came to serve as interim national security adviser, a role that gave him more direct control over the policy on Venezuela. As Trump’s personal national security aide, working primarily out of the White House, Rubio was now responsible for distilling the policy options before the president on Venezuela and other issues. Grenell, working from the Kennedy Center, was now even further than his rival was from the main decision-making on Venezuela.
The day before the Miami Herald published the interview with Claver-Carone, in which he said he remained “one phone call away” from the White House’s policymaking operation, Rubio announced that the Chevron license would indeed expire on May 27. So, too, would Sargeant’s.
The plan unravels
While Rubio settled into a West Wing office, Grenell spent much of the second half of 2025 overseeing a performing arts venue he tried to rename the Trump-Kennedy Center under his leadership, though the change is in dispute. While contending with Trump’s desire to renovate the building and feuding with musicians refusing to perform there, Grenell still angled to maintain his influence on foreign policy.
Grenell remained in contact with those seeking to shape the administration’s Venezuela posture, scheduling meetings with Schock at the Hay-Adams Hotel in mid-June and with Rahman, one of Sargeant’s lawyers, at the Ritz-Carlton in Washington days later, according to Schock’s calendar. They were all scheduled to speak by phone with Sargeant in early July, joined by then-Sen. Markwayne Mullin, a former Republican House colleague of Schock’s. The Department of Homeland Security, which Mullin now heads, denied that the then-senator was meeting with Sargeant and Grenell, but clarified that Schock did attend a Mullin fundraiser in Beverly Hills.
“There were no ‘regular’ meetings with Mr. Sargeant,” Kise told POLITICO. “As part of his consulting agreement, Schock would from time to time provide strategic input. Such activity was and is fully consistent with the purposes for which Schock was hired.”
Forward Global shut down its work on the project, due to what the firm described in a statement as “opposing directions on strategy and tactics, with the parties choosing to forego a longer-term, phase two engagement.”
Schock’s team looked on as the ambition of better relations with Venezuela moved increasingly out of reach. Rubio showed in July that he could pragmatically negotiate with the Venezuelans when he orchestrated a complex prisoner swap that saw Venezuela release remaining Americans in its custody in exchange for hundreds of Venezuelan nationals the U.S. had deported to El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison.
Those working on behalf of U.S. oil businesses and bondholders with a stake in the status quo were also unable to thwart Rubio’s savvy reframing of Venezuela’s threat. He and his allies stopped talking about Maduro as a socialist and authoritarian but instead as the head of a drug cartel, based on decades-old ties between Venezuela’s criminal networks and top military officers. Immigration hardliners led by Miller, hellbent on projecting strength in the regional neighborhood, grew convinced of the need to act. Based on scant intelligence, American forces began aiming missiles at small boats in the Caribbean they alleged were trafficking drugs.
Maduro made some last-ditch efforts to stave off a more extensive military engagement, offering in September to reestablish dialogue with Grenell. The entreaty went nowhere with the White House.
Nevertheless, Grenell tried to present himself as actively influencing Venezuela policy. The special envoy said in a Sept. 25 interview on CBS News that “I’ve already been engaging, at the direction of President Trump, I’ve spoken to Mr. Maduro, and I continue to speak with his team.”
Trump and Maduro spoke on the phone later that fall. While cordial, their conversation provided no resolution to the brewing standoff between Washington and Caracas, as Trump called for Maduro to cede power in October. Schock continued to schedule meetings with Rahman and Grenell throughout November and December, according to his calendar, but any chance to shape U.S. policy was by then likely lost.
On Jan. 3, 2026, the U.S. military launched a daring overnight operation in Caracas, deploying special forces to capture Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, who were moved to a New York jail where they await trial on drug trafficking charges. Delcy Rodriguez, Humes’s interlocutor, became the country’s acting leader, with much of the regime beneath her remaining in place. It now operates with the blessing of the Trump administration, which restored diplomatic relations on March 5.
In a statement to POLITICO, White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said Trump “is and always has been motivated solely by what is best for the American people — as evidenced by successfully carrying out Operation Absolute Resolve and arresting narcoterrorist Nicolas Maduro. Through the reestablishment of our diplomatic and consular relations, the United States and Venezuela are strengthening our economic ties and facilitating unprecedented investments.”
The following month, an American lobbyist registered to represent Rodriguez’s interests in dealings with the White House and State Department. California-based lawyer Jihad Smaili wrote in the April 11 disclosure that he will aid Rodriguez amid ongoing legislation involving the assets of PDVSA and advise her as she looks to secure the end of U.S. sanctions against her and her country and prepares for an upcoming, yet to be announced, presidential election. Smaili said he would provide a comment for this article but did not.
Even though Rubio eclipsed Grenell in setting the administration’s agenda towards Venezuela, Sargeant ultimately got much of what he wanted. The scenario that he had hoped to forestall — a U.S.-led effort to topple not only Maduro but the entire structure of government — did not come to pass. The administration’s regime change diehards let the dream of regime change die easily.
“Secretary Rubio and special envoy Mauricio Claver-Carone appear to have taken a disciplined, longer-term approach,” Humes said in an email to POLITICO. “In my view, their willingness to treat this as a complex policy challenge rather than a short-term political issue contributed to shaping the current framework.”
Yet tensions between the hawks and bondholders continue to shape U.S. policy towards Venezuela. The country, reportedly with a recommendation from Claver-Carone, now serving as an outside adviser to Rubio and the administration, has replaced financiers working on its $150 billion debt obligations with a competitor, American firm Centerview Partners, which according to Reuters was hired without a formal bidding process.
“Centerview was hired by Venezuela because our team is the world leader, with unique experience working on the largest sovereign-debt restructurings and no conflicts of interest,” the firm told POLITICO in a statement.
A Trump administration official said restructuring Venezuela’s debt is the responsibility of that country’s government. A separate State Department spokesperson said Claver-Carone as “a good U.S. citizen routinely consults and shares his perceptions with U.S. officials” but is not directly involved in decision making about Venezuela’s debt structure.
“He does not currently have an official role in the Trump Administration and is not acting on behalf of the United States government or issuing instructions to U.S. or foreign officials,” the spokesperson said in a written statement. “Any insinuation of that nature is abundantly false.”
The administration has framed its broader efforts in Venezuela as an opportunity for the country to clean its financial slate as it looks to court international investment, including from American business gingerly entering into joint ventures with the state-owned oil company.
Claver-Carone said the Venezuelan government’s change to Centerview was needed because he claims “Humes and creditors…were scheming to get top dollar with Maduro and debt swaps for oil concessions.” As for recent journalistic accounts highlighting his purported influence over Venezuela policy, Claver-Carone said in an interview that “the dirty insider game with Maduro is over and now” Humes and others “are back at their dirty tricks.”
Humes, for his part, downplayed any disagreements, saying he was “impressed” with Claver-Carone in past meetings. Acknowledging that he was skeptical that “the political conditions existed” necessary to achieve Rubio’s “broad objectives,” Humes said he agrees with Claver-Carone’s “change in approach” toward the Venezuelan government and “reported support for the appointment of Centerview Partners as financial adviser to Venezuela.” Humes insisted that “creditors are not interested in quick fixes or short-term gains. They are interested in a comprehensive restructuring that restores market access, attracts investment, addresses Venezuela’s debt burden and supports sustainable economic growth.”
Sargeant still has not received his Treasury Department license, according to Kise. Sargeant told Reuters in a Jan. 8 interview that members of his team were working with the Trump administration. Yet after The Wall Street Journal published a piece outlining some of Sargeant’s ambitions in the wake of Maduro’s ouster, Trump wrote a long post touting good relations with acting leader Rodríguez. Sargeant “has no authority, in any way, shape, or form, to act on behalf of the United States of America, nor does anyone else that is not approved by the State Department,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Kise insisted that “at no time did Mr. Sargeant ever act or claim to act on behalf of the United States. Mr. Sargeant stands and stood fully behind the vision and leadership of President Trump and his Administration and applauds the extraordinary efforts of President Trump and Secretary Rubio on behalf of both the U.S. and the Venezuelan people.”
For his part, Papermaster quit working for Schock in the fall of 2025 after growing disillusioned with the whole project, claiming he was never fully paid for his work on it.
“Looking back, the narrative I was fed was misleading, and I’m disappointed in the fact that I didn’t catch it earlier,” Papermaster said in an interview, reflecting on the campaign he had helped to lead. “The narrative I was fed was that this was an America First thing, and for the people of Venezuela. In reality, this was not America First. This was for lining the pockets of Aaron Schock and Harry Sargeant.”