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<div class="header reader-header reader-show-element"> <font
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<h1 class="reader-title">Biden inaugural guest is Venezuelan
coup leader charged with inciting violent assault on gov't
building<br>
</h1>
<div class="credits reader-credits">Anya Parampil·January 17,
2021</div>
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<h4>After condemning the pro-Trump invasion of the
Capitol, the incoming Biden administration invited
Carlos Vecchio – a coup leader charged in the 2014
torching of the Venezuelan Attorney General’s office –
to its inaugural ceremony.</h4>
<hr>
<p><span>As Washington recovered from shock and outrage
caused by pro-Trump hooligans storming the United
States Congress – breaking windows, smashing doors,
and intimidating police officers in order to push
their way inside – a sense of pre-inaugural excitement
began to sweep the nation’s capital. Who would be
attending incoming President Joe Biden’s inauguration
on January 20, scheduled to take place exactly two
weeks following the Capitol riot?</span></p>
<p><span>While heavily armed National Guard troops
descended onto Washington’s streets to set up
check-points, construct fences around government
buildings, and establish their military presence, news
about the upcoming swearing-in ceremony began to
trickle out in the media. </span></p>
<p><span>Lady Gaga was booked to belt out the National
Anthem, while Jennifer Lopez, John Legend, Bruce
Springsteen, and a host of other Democratic
Party-aligned pop artists were scheduled to perform
throughout the day. Former Trump cabinet members,
including Vice President Mike Pence, Supreme Court
Justices, and lawmakers were all expected to attend,
though the National Mall would be closed to the
general public. </span></p>
<p><span>Beyond entertainers and high-level federal
officials, foreign dignitaries were invited to join a
smaller-than-usual group of individuals permitted to
witness the day’s festivities. </span><a
href="https://apnews.com/article/venezuela-caracas-latin-america-diplomacy-dd7de047b619aa0a714a38ae02a4834c"><span>Among
those dignitaries</span></a><span> is </span><a
href="https://thegrayzone.com/2019/06/18/exxon-ambassador-carlos-vecchio-venezuela-coup-lobbyist/"><span>Carlos
Vecchio</span></a><span>, a former Exxon lawyer who
currently serves as US-recognized “Interim President”
Juan Guaidó’s envoy in Washington. When the Trump
Administration initiated a coup against Venezuela’s
government in January of 2019, Vecchio became Guaidó’s
ambassador, and has risen to prominence as the de
facto leader of a US-based exile lobby dedicated to
toppling Venezuela’s UN-recognized government.</span></p>
<p><span>The Biden team’s decision to invite Vecchio was a
disappointing sign to those hoping the new
administration would break from Trump’s failed and
destructive policy of recognizing Guaidó as
Venezuela’s leader. In the two years since Washington
appointed the previously unknown opposition figure to
lead its attempt at regime change, Guaidó has failed
to rally public support in Venezuela or gain control
of any government ministry. The country’s military
remains loyal to President Nicolás Maduro and the
United Nations still recognizes the Maduro
government’s authority. </span></p>
<p><span>Beyond giving the appearance that Biden will
continue the Trump Administration’s doomed Venezuela
policy, Vecchio’s presence at the presidential
swearing-in ceremony was filled with irony. In the
days following the Capitol riot, Biden and his allies
have denounced the violent takeover of Congress as an
assault on democracy, with the incoming president
himself declaring the rioters to be “domestic
terrorists.” </span></p>
<p><span>Yet Carlos Vecchio, the Guaidó ally with a fresh
ticket to Biden’s inauguration, is responsible for
leading his own assault on his home country’s
democracy – and is currently wanted in Venezuela for
inciting a violent attack on the Attorney General’s
office in Caracas.</span></p>
<h3><strong>Biden’s guest charged with inspiring a violent
assault on Venezuela’s public institutions</strong></h3>
<p><span>On February 12, 2014, right-wing opposition
leader Leopoldo López led a feverish rally of his
supporters in the heart of Venezuela’s capital,
Caracas. For over a month, López and his political
allies had been holding demonstrations aimed at
overthrowing newly-elected president Nicolás Maduro,
who came into office following snap elections held in
the aftermath of Hugo Chávez’s death.</span></p>
<p><span>Carlos Vecchio, the corporate lawyer who went on
to represent Juan Guaidó in Washington, also spoke at
the demonstration, and stood loyally by López’s side
as he delivered his incendiary speech calling for an
angry march to the Attorney General’s office, and
whipping the crowd into chants of, “No fear! No fear!”</span></p>
<p><span>López’s supporters heeded his call and charged
straight for the office of Venezuela’s Public
Prosecutor, eventually setting the building on fire.
Columbia University’s Global Freedom of Expression
project </span><a
href="https://globalfreedomofexpression.columbia.edu/cases/el-caso-de-leopoldo-lopez/"><span>conceded</span></a><span>
the mayhem “resulted in the death of two people and
considerable damage to public property.” </span></p>
<p><span>López and his allies, including Vecchio, were
charged for their role in inciting the destruction.
López was eventually sentenced to 13 years in prison
for his actions, while Vecchio fled to the United
States to escape “incitement of violence” charges.</span></p>
<p><span>The attack on Venezuela’s public institutions in
February of 2014 mirrored events that would take place
in Washington DC roughly six years later, when
President Donald Trump delivered a speech on the White
House eclipse instructing his supporters to march to
the Capitol as lawmakers voted to cerity his election
loss. Within minutes of arriving at Congress, Trump’s
followers overwhelmed the meager crowd of police
deployed to protect the legislature and forced their
way inside – unafraid to shatter doors and windows as
they did so. </span></p>
<p><span>Following the violent breach of the Capitol,
incoming president Joe Biden characterized the mob’s
actions as “an unprecedented assault on our democracy,
an assault literally on the citadel of liberty, in the
United States Capitol itself” and “an assault on the
rule of law.” Democrats in the House of
Representatives quickly moved to impeach Trump,
charging the president with “incitement of
insurrection.”</span></p>
<p><span>In light of their outraged response to the
Capitol raid, which they branded an act of illegal
insurrection, Biden and his allies might be
sympathetic to the Venezuelan government, which
similarly moved to charge López and his
co-conspirators, including Vecchio, for their role in
encouraging a blitz on government buildings after the
country’s Attorney General’s office was torched by a
politically-charged mob. </span></p>
<p><span>Instead, the wanted coup leader Vecchio was
welcomed by a bipartisan crew of top Washington
politicians including President Trump, House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi, Florida neocon Senator Marco Rubio, and
former Democratic Party Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman
Schultz. </span></p>
<p><span>The violent actions of Vecchio and his allies
were hardly limited to the events of February 12,
2014. The chaotic demonstrations they led lasted until
May of that year, resulting in the deaths of 49 people
and roughly 10 billion dollars in damage. Regime
change rampages by Venezuela’s opposition have
featured </span><a
href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/11211"><span>assaults</span></a><span>
on journalists, the </span><a
href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/13186"><span>construction</span></a><span>
of barricades manned by vandals, and the </span><a
href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-40157729"><span>burning</span></a><span>
to death of political opponents.</span></p>
<p><span>On June 13, 2017, activists </span><a
href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/13180"><span>set</span></a><span>
Venezuela’s Supreme Court on fire following jailed
opposition leader López’s call for a rebellion against
the Maduro government. Days later a police officer
named Óscar Pérez </span><a
href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-40426642"><span>hijacked</span></a><span>
a government helicopter and attempted to launch four
grenades at the Court while firing live bullets at the
country’s Interior Ministry. (Trump <a
href="https://twitter.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/1097618046888435713?s=20">honored
Pérez</a> during a political rally in South Florida
on February 18, 2019).</span></p>
<p><span>For his part, Juan Guaidó has led two failed
campaigns of violent insurrection against Venezuela’s
government. In April of 2019, he </span><a
href="https://www.google.com/search?q=april+30+uprising+venezuela&oq=april+30+uprising+venezuela&aqs=chrome..69i57.4907j1j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8"><span>called</span></a><span>
for an uprising against President Maduro while a group
of a few dozen soldiers launched an attack on the La
Carlota Air Base in Caracas. While the rebellion
failed to generate popular support, López was broken
out of house arrest during the day’s events, leading
to his eventual exile in Spain.</span></p>
<p><span>Roughly a year later, Guaidó was exposed at the
center of yet another coup plot when former U.S. Green
Beret Jordan Goudreau </span><a
href="https://apnews.com/article/5f44624bb7442d85e431cd64a4aed3a8"><span>accused</span></a><span>
the politician of contracting his services to carry
out a botched capture or kill operation targeting
President Maduro. Goudreau, who previously provided
private security for Trump campaign rallies, produced
a </span><a
href="https://twitter.com/MV_Eng/status/1257773881026244609?s=20"><span>contract</span></a><span>
containing Guaidó’s signature along with a </span><a
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=83&v=rLGWmDsCmms&feature=emb_title"><span>voice
recording</span></a><span> of Guaidó allegedly
discussing the deal though Guaidó himself has denied
involvement.</span></p>
<p><span>Biden and the Democrats reacted with indignation
when the U.S. Capitol was breached for just one
afternoon, immediately initiating Trump’s second
impeachment by the House of Representatives. Within
days, the Capitol was surrounded with unscalable
fencing and 25,000 National Guard soldiers were
summoned to occupy central Washington DC – more than
three times the amount of troops deployed to Iraq,
Syria, and Afghanistan combined.</span></p>
<p><span>It would be instructive to imagine how Democrats
would have responded if Trump or his supporters
attempted anything like the years-long campaign of
insurrection by Venezuela’s opposition – and did so
with the full-throated support of a foreign power.
What if Trump supporters had set up barricades around
Washington DC, preventing residents from leaving or
entering their own neighborhoods? What if they had lit
the Supreme Court on fire and bombed it from the air
in a stolen military helicopter? And how would
Democrats have reacted if Trump had contracted foreign
mercenaries to capture or kill Biden? </span></p>
<p><span>Anyone troubled by these hypothetical scenarios
should be equally disturbed that Carlos Vecchio, a
veteran coup leader allied with seditious forces in
his home country, will be present at Biden’s
inauguration on January 20.</span></p>
<h3><strong>Sen. Durbin lobbies for Venezuelan coup
leaders hours after condemning Trumpist “insurrection”</strong></h3>
<p><span>In the lead up to the House vote on President
Trump’s impeachment, on January 11, U.S. Senator Dick
Durbin <a
href="https://twitter.com/SenatorDurbin/status/1348679317623099392">tweeted</a>,
“The President and his Republican enablers incited a
violent mob into storming the Capitol… This was an
assault on our democracy, our national security, and
our Constitution. There must be accountability,
including impeachment.”</span></p>
<p><span>Hours later Durbin took to Twitter again to <a
href="https://twitter.com/SenatorDurbin/status/1348747727853727748">boast</a>
of his meeting with incoming Secretary of State
Anthony Blinken, saying the two discussed “his plan
for the State Department in the Biden Administration.”</span></p>
<p><span>According to the senator’s office, Durbin
explicitly advocated the Biden administration preserve
support for Juan Guaidó, whom he described as
Venezuela’s “Interim-President.”</span></p>
<p><span>“We thank you Senator Durbin for addressing with
the nominee for U.S. Secretary of State Anthony
Blinken the critical situation of Venezuela, the
actions to restoring democracy hijacked by Nicolas
Maduro’s dictatorship, and the necessary support to
the Venezuelan people,” Vecchio tweeted in response to
news of the conversation.</span></p>
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