MIAMI (AP) — A federal grand jury in Washington has indicted former Congressman David Rivera for failing to register as a foreign agent of a sanctioned Venezuelan media mogul on behalf of whom the Miami Republican allegedly lobbied the Trump administration.
The indictment is the second set of criminal charges investigating Rivera’s relationship with Raúl Gorrín, a billionaire businessman accused in 2018 and again in 2024 of bribing senior Venezuelan officials in corrupt deals to embezzle state funds from Nicolas Maduro’s government .
The indictment unsealed on Wednesday alleges that between June 2019 and April 2020, Rivera lobbied US officials, including an unnamed senior official in the executive branch, to lift sanctions on Gorrín. He was helped by another unnamed individual, described as a former U.S. official and New York resident, prosecutors from the U.S. Department of Justice’s National Security Division said.
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Rivera allegedly received more than $5.5 million for these activities and failed to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, as required when contacting U.S. officials on behalf of foreign individuals and companies. He was also accused of money laundering in connection with undeclared lobbying.
To further his criminal activities, Rivera allegedly created bogus shell companies registered in Delaware, using names associated with a law firm and the unnamed official, as well as the official’s hometown, to create the false appearance that the shell companies were legitimate, police said. indictment. Prosecutors said the official was unaware the companies were using his or her name and hometown.
Ed Shohat, a Miami attorney representing Rivera, declined to comment, saying he had not had time to discuss the charges with his client.
Rivera was arrested in 2022 in another illegal lobbying case, outside federal court in Miami, tied to a $50 million consulting contract his firm, Interamerican Consulting, signed with a U.S. affiliate of Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA. Prosecutors say the 2017 contract was a ruse to conceal a secret campaign by Maduro’s government to curry favor with the new Trump administration.
Maduro’s outreach, facilitated by Susie Wiles, Trump’s current new chief of staff when she worked as a lobbyist in Washington on behalf of Gorrín’s TV network Globovision, ultimately failed. In 2019, Trump recognized opposition figure Juan Guaidó as Venezuela’s legitimate leader and imposed tough oil sanctions on the OPEC country in an effort to dethrone Maduro.
But before the charm offensive unfolded, Gorrín, with the help of Rivera and others, managed to have his picture taken shaking hands with then-Vice President Mike Pence at an event in Florida. Rivera and Gorrín also met with Trump’s pick to be secretary of state, Sen. Marco Rubio, who was once Rivera’s roommate when both were state lawmakers in Tallahassee.
Rivera also tried to set up a possible flight and meeting on Gorrín’s plane for a female campaign adviser who became a White House “advisor” on June 27, 2017 — the same day Trump aide Kellyanne Conway was in Miami for a fundraising dinner with Republicans of Miami, according to court records in the earlier criminal complaint and a parallel lawsuit filed against Rivera by Maduro’s opponents, who now control PDVSA’s U.S. subsidiary.
Rivera also enlisted Rep. Pete Sessions of Texas to try to arrange a meeting for the Venezuelan secretary of state with executives from Exxon, which was headquartered in Sessions’ district at the time.
