Donald Trump is putting himself in the middle of a cash grab in Venezuela
- Fri, Jan 9 2026 at 11:23 AM
Did you see this, Mark?
The Hill: “Trump says he tipped off oil companies on Venezuela attack”
President Trump said that he spoke to oil companies “before and after” U.S. forces captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on Saturday.
However, according to Rep. Jim Himes, the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, Trump did not even notify top congressional leadership—much less seek their approval for the operation in Venezuela.
That means even a hint at the operation to oil companies would have been more than what Trump or his administration granted Congress.
Mark, Donald Trump is putting himself in the middle of a cash grab in Venezuela, saying he will control the oil himself. Trump is already the most corrupt president in American history—but this opens up a new frontier for him to pick winners and losers among insiders and corporate interests that bankrolled his campaign.DONATE → Trump has claimed that the operation in Venezuela “won’t cost us anything, because the money coming out of the ground is very substantial.” But it’s unclear how he thinks the money would filter back up to the US government to reimburse taxpayers.
What is clear? This is just the latest apparent giveaway to the industry.
The oil industry invested heavily in Trump’s 2024 campaign after he asked their executives to donate $1 billion to support his election.
Adding to the corruption surrounding the invasion of Venezuela, an anonymous Polymarket user made more than $400,000 by betting that Maduro would be ousted in the days and hours before the operation—which looks like potential insider trading.
Amid these alarming legal and corruption issues, the Trump administration has granted the American people very little insight or transparency into its justification for the operation.
In fact, the administration has reportedly relied on a secret memo from the Office of Legal Counsel as a legal shield for its unauthorized strikes on boats coming from Venezuela.
CREW has been calling for these types of memos to be made public for years, because in a democracy, there should be no body of secret law. The least the administration could do is release its legal justifications, so the American people can judge them for themselves.
The potential corruption and abuses at play here are vast: from ignoring the law and operating in secrecy to Trump personally controlling a vast potential source of wealth, and tipping off corporate interests, while ignoring Congress.
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