Several attempted attacks on the re-elected Venezuelan president have been reported lately and there could apparently have been more, had the American side assisted the country's military in their plot.
According to a New York Times report, citing 11 current and former American officials and a former Venezuelan military commander, the White House held a number of clandestine meetings in 2017 with Venezuelan military leaders plotting to overthrow President Nicolas Maduro; however, US officials ultimately decided against backing the rebels, bringing the plot to a standstill.
In the series of meetings in question, which started in 2017 and continued for over a year, the military officers told the American government that they spoke on behalf of several hundred members of the armed forces, allegedly deeply suffering from what they called Maduro's “authoritarian” policies. The officers reportedly turned to the US, requesting it to provide encrypted radios to them while they were devising an ambitious plan to set up a transitional government to run the country before new elections could be held.
In August 2017, President Trump declared that the United States had a “military option” for Venezuela — a declaration that was briskly criticized by locally based American allies, but encouraged several Venezuelan military officers to reach out to Washington once again.
“It was the commander…
