The Foreign Influence Scandal Shaking the White House
The Foreign Influence Scandal Shaking the White House
A longtime associate of Marco Rubio is being prosecuted for running an undercover influence campaign for Venezuela.
Marco Rubio is going to court. The Secretary of State is scheduled to testify against a good friend and political associate from his time in the Florida House of Representatives in a trial over foreign influence allegations that are shaping up to impact some of the most powerful people in Washington.
The defendant, David Rivera, has been Rubio’s friend for more than two decades. Rubio and Rivera campaigned and served together in the Florida House, where they earned the nicknames “Batman and Robin.” Rivera also played a major role in pushing Rubio to launch his underdog Senate campaign and canvassed for him during the race. Their partnership extended far beyond politics—they signed a mortgage for a house together, and Rivera was present at the hospital for the birth of all four of Rubio’s children.
But while Marco Rubio has stepped onto first the national and now the world stage, David Rivera has been dogged by allegations of corruption and dirty dealings—accusations that are now seeping into the fetid waters of Washington, DC, and making trouble for some of the most powerful people in the country.
The case for which Rubio is headed to court is one currently headed up by the Trump administration itself. Rivera, who has been the subject of a number of past investigations by the FBI for taking bribes and kickbacks during his time in Florida politics, is now accused of acting as an unregistered foreign agent on behalf of the Venezuelan government.
In 2022, Rivera was arrested and charged by the Department of Justice with a violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), which mandates that any American “whose activities are directly or indirectly supervised, directed, controlled, financed, or subsidized” by a foreign government or agent must register with the federal government and disclose their funding and lobbying activities. The issue stems from a massive contract that Rivera’s consulting firm, Interamerican Consulting Inc., took in 2017 from Citgo, the American subsidiary of Venezuelan state-owned oil company Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA). Prosecutors allege that the colossal $50 million contract was in fact cover for an agreement under which Rivera would clandestinely lobby for the interests of the Venezuelan government, then led by President Nicolás Maduro.
The indictment alleges that Rivera used his contacts to arrange a meeting between an American congressman and the then-vice president of Venezuela Delcy Rodriguez “to discuss a process for normalizing relations between the United States and Venezuela.” Rivera also unsuccessfully attempted to facilitate a meeting for the Venezuelan government with an American oil company that Caracas wanted to partner with. Rivera even arranged for Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX), then chair of the powerful House Rules Committee, to travel to Venezuela and meet with Maduro in 2018.
Others who met with Rivera during the time he was allegedly lobbying for the Maduro government include Rubio, then a U.S. senator for Florida, and Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway. The contract for these services, among others, was sent by Rivera’s consulting firm directly to PDVSA executives in Venezuela.
Rivera has denied the allegations and appears ready to go down fighting. His defense team subpoenaed Rubio at the end of 2025 to testify that he was actually working to subvert the Maduro regime, not lobby for it. “Senator Rubio and Mr. Rivera were focused only on their support for the Opposition in Venezuela, on sanctions against the Maduro government, and on removing Maduro as head of state in Venezuela,” his lawyers wrote in a letter in December.
Rubio isn’t the only White House figure Rivera appears willing to drag down with him in the contest. One of Rivera’s Venezuelan contacts was Venezuelan media executive Raúl Gorrín, the president of TV network Globovisión. According to court documents reviewed by The Lever, Gorrín helped to arrange the Citgo contract with Rivera’s consulting firm and acted as his liaison with the Venezuelan government. He also accompanied Rivera to some of his meetings, including a meeting with Rubio, and received millions of dollars in kickbacks from Rivera for his services. In an uncomfortable twist for the Trump administration, at the same time as he was traversing DC with Rivera, Gorrín’s Globovisión hired the lobbying firm Ballardson Partners to expand its business in the U.S.—a firm that was run in part by current Trump Chief of Staff Susie Wiles.
Wiles and Gorrín corresponded extensively at the time, with court documents referencing some 400 pages of material related to the case, and Rivera’s lawyers have requested that the Chief of Staff testify about Ballardson Partners’s activities lobbying for Gorrín and his Venezuelan business interests. And they may have a serious case: A document obtained by the Miami Herald shows that Ballard lobbyists drafted a letter for Gorrín to deliver to Trump at his inauguration; the letter contains a proposal for mending U.S.–Venezuelan relations in exchange for a political transition, but does not mention Globovisión or Gorrín’s business interests.
While neither Wiles nor her associates at the firm are being accused of any wrongdoing, the implication is clear: Ballardson Partners never registered as a foreign agent under FARA. If Rivera is found guilty of illicit foreign lobbying, it could bring the activities of other members of Trump’s orbit under additional scrutiny.
So far, the affair has been flying under the national radar, but Rivera’s legal team (which includes David Markus, the defense lawyer representing Jeffrey Epstein’s confidante Ghislaine Maxwell) is doing its best to make headlines. At least part of Rivera’s legal strategy seems aimed at pressuring the Trump administration to drop the case by making it increasingly awkward for the president and his allies to prosecute. Rivera has a long history of shady dealings and scrapes with the law—scrapes in which, so far, he has always evaded suffering significant consequences—but if he can squeeze out of this one, it will be his biggest Houdini act so far.
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