THE PAYOFF

How a $6 Million Trump Donor Got First Dibs on Venezuela’s Seized Oil

We were told—and it feels like years ago, though it was only days—that the proceeds from Venezuelan oil would go back to the Venezuelan people. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced it himself: the United States would sell between 30 and 50 million barrels at “market rates,” with revenue used “in a way that benefits the Venezuelan people.” It was the humanitarian gloss on an act of naked plunder, the promise that made the theft sound almost noble. We were liberating their oil so we could give them the money.

That promise lasted about a week. The first $250 million contract went to Vitol, the world’s largest independent oil trader, whose senior executive had just written $6 million in checks to put Donald Trump back in the White House. The oil is not going to the Venezuelan people. It is going to a Trump mega-donor. The money is not being held in trust for Caracas. It is flowing through Houston. Whatever you believed about this administration’s intentions in Venezuela, you can stop b…