Eli Lake, Columnist

Justice in Venezuela Will Be Bittersweet

The price of removing Nicolas Maduro from office may be amnesty for his deputies.

August 26, 2019 at 9:00 AM UTC

Eli Lake is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering national security and foreign policy. He was the senior national security correspondent for the Daily Beast and covered national security and intelligence for the Washington Times, the New York Sun and UPI.

But will he say no to Nicolas Maduro?
Photographer: Bloomberg/Bloomberg

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No one should take Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro’s words at face value. That applies to his claims last week that his regime is in secret negotiations with “high-ranking” American officials.

His comments were almost certainly a gambit to divide the opposition during the on-again, off-again negotiations over new elections being brokered by the Norwegian government. They were a ploy to make the internationally recognized but largely powerless government of interim President Juan Guaido believe that U.S. President Donald Trump was negotiating behind its back.