A month before being elected President of the Republic, Gustavo Petro asked former magistrate Julio César Ortiz (then one of his lawyers) to go to the Spanish Court, where former Venezuelan military officer Hugo"El Pollo" Carvajal would be questioned. He promised to talk about the alleged financing of political campaigns in other countries by the Chávez and Maduro regimes, including that of the Historic Pact.
On April 22, 2022, the former head of Venezuelan intelligence decided not to speak either in Spain or before the Colombian justice system, because he was in the process of being extradited to the United States. But today, less than 10 months before Petro's term ends, the ghost of 'El Pollo' appears again, in the midst of one of the most serious crises facing the Colombian government under Republican Donald Trump.
Tensions between Washington and Bogotá reached their peak on Friday with the inclusion of President Gustavo Petro and part of his circle on the dreaded Clinton List. And, while alternative diplomatic channels are being sought to de-escalate tensions with the United States, which has assured that it will maintain part of its aid to Colombia, EL TIEMPO established that other cards are still being considered to increase the pressure on the Colombian government.
Sources in Washington indicate that, although –due to the intervention of Senator Bernie Moreno and former officials and influential figures in the country– the imposition of higher tariffs was temporarily halted, next week a new attack could come that is advancing behind the scenes and that has two spearheads.
The first is to expand the number of members of President Petro's entourage on the Clinton List; and the other is to open a court case against him. In that sense, there is talk of at least 35 people (others say 50) who could be added to the OFAC sanctioned list.
The Trump administration itself, through the Treasury Department, is reportedly preparing the addition with specific arguments, like those used to list the president, his eldest son, Nicolás; his wife, Verónica Alcocer; and his Interior Minister, Armando Benedetti.
“First Lady Verónica del Socorro Alcocer García was unconstitutionally appointed by Gustavo Petro as ambassador on special mission. A Colombian court later annulled the appointment, finding that it violated Article 126 of the Colombian Constitution, which prohibits the Colombian President from appointing his or her spouse or permanent partner,” the Alcocer case states.
EL TIEMPO investigated and established that the candidates to join the Clinton List include current and former government officials. In addition, there are people close to Alcocer and other close associates of the Casa de Nariño.
The possible 'indicment'
This is where OFAC would intersect with a possible judicial process that, according to sources from the Department of Justice, was already being explored and which the president himself referred to in his speech on Friday in the Plaza de Bolívar, when he said they were looking to put him in prison.
That eventual indictment, sources in Washington said, would focus on alleged drug money that came into his campaign. This would include the alleged contributions from Nicolás Maduro's regime that Carvajal, who pleaded guilty to narcoterrorism charges and whose sentence will be announced on Wednesday, mentioned.
Although President Petro rejected this version, the US maintains that establishing the link with Maduro, who is already classified as a drug trafficker, would not be difficult. Diosdado Cabello himself, the regime's second-in-command, publicly stated that then-candidate Petro had asked them for support for his campaign in 2018.
“That Mr. Petro came here once to ask for support for his campaign (...) That is why he lost and will never win, because the people despise cowards, those who are dubious... those who do not take responsibility,” Cabello said.
At the time, the current President stated:"I'm not interested in supporting Maduro because there's no revolution in a cabal that perpetuates itself solely to capture oil revenue. That's not a revolution."
But today things have changed and it is Cabello who comes to Petro's defense, while Maduro insists that"Colombia knows that we are one, Siamese twins, and whatever happens with Colombia is with Venezuela, and whatever happens with Venezuela is with Colombia."
Gas and Budapest
Beyond the Venezuela chapter, EL TIEMPO learned that a Colombian businessman is allegedly involved in a campaign contribution.
“Specifically, it is said that the contribution was going to be repaid with gas businesses, which passed through Ecopetrol and that were stopped by the sanctions against Venezuela and the scandal of the looting of PDVSA,” explained a source in Miami who added that this businessman, in addition to having his visa recently revoked, had two accounts in the United States frozen and a green Mercedes AMG G63, special edition, was found on him.
"Based on information provided by former Petro government officials, movements of money and people through Dubai and Budapest have been monitored. This information is being verified," the same source explained.
And he recalled a recent tweet from Ángela Benedetti, sister of Minister Armando Benedetti, in which she stated that she believed in the President because, unlike “his wife, his children Nicolases” and a group of friends, he was not greedy: “There are already three on the Clinton List from that tweet.”
The judicial process that has been talked about for months was planned for later, but, as Senator Moreno said, it would be “turbo-engined.” And while the possibility of Petro facing justice and eventually being found guilty is remote – he himself has said that his conscience is clear and others have allegedly made use of Venezuela’s contributions – Washington’s objective, for the moment, would be to increase the pressure.
However, the possibility of the matter moving forward is greater if one takes into account that the Attorney General's Office in the United States is now acting under Trump's instructions, as has been seen in other cases, such as former FBI Director James Comey and former National Security Advisor John Bolton – two political enemies of Trump – who were prosecuted based on weak evidence.
Entrapment
First on his social media and then in Plaza Bolívar—amid the call for the Constituent Assembly—President Petro rejected the inclusions on the Clinton List, referring to a trap and even reiterating that he will use legal means to defend himself.
(See all articles from EL TIEMPO's Investigative Unit here)
And in what some analysts assume is a lowering of the tone, he omitted several of the issues that escalated the pressure on the White House from his speech: the decertification of Colombia for its weak fight against drug trafficking, the revocation of his visa, and his defense of the Maduro regime, which is under siege by the US military operation in the Caribbean that would now be carried out on land. Still, it's unlikely Trump will back down.
