Was Bartering Venezuelans Always the Plan?
Yesterday, 252 Venezuelan men who had been held in CECOT concentration camp were flown to Venezuela. Among the people who survived their detention in El Salvador are Andry José Hernández Romero (the gay stylist), Neri Alvarado Borges (the guy kidnapped because of his autism-solidarity tattoo), and Christian, who came to the US as an unaccompanied minor and should have been protected under a prior agreement. The government including this declaration in the latter docket explaining that Nicolás Maduro has agreed to send back any of the 252 returned men for legal proceedings (though as written that appears to cover only adverse proceedings).
In exchange for the return to Venezuela of those men, Maduro released dozens of political prisoners and 10 US citizens or permanent residents.
The successful prisoner swap comes just ten days after a NYT story describing how both Marco Rubio and Ric Grenell were attempting to negotiate that deal, but Grenell fucked it up by offering better (and unapproved) terms than Rubio was offering.
The Trump administration’s top diplomat, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, was overseeing a deal to free several Americans and dozens of political prisoners held in Venezuela in exchange for sending home about 250 Venezuelan migrants the United States had deported to El Salvador.
But the deal never happened.
Part of the reason: President Trump’s envoy to Venezuela was working on his own deal, one with terms that Venezuela deemed more attractive. In exchange for American prisoners, he was offering to allow Chevron to continue its oil operations in Venezuela, a vital source of revenue for its authoritarian government.
The discussions, which included the release of about 80 Venezuelan political prisoners, and the two different deals were described by two U.S. officials and two other people who are familiar with the talks and sought anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the issue.
That attempted deal has been public since at least April.
Which raises the question: Was a third-country swap always the plan? Was that part of the reason why Emil Bove ordered a bunch of people at a March 14 meeting that the planes carrying the Venezuelan men — plus some Salvadorans who could implicate Nayib Bukele in ties to MS-13 — must take off, no matter what?
I’ll return to this question — it’s one I’ve been puzzling as the Administration goes to ever more extreme lengths to cover up what happened here.
Those 252 men were used as bait.
Was that always the plan?
It sure seems like it was the plan all along, especially since Bukele began pitching the swap to VE, just a month or so after his receipt of them, to absolutely no protest from the WH.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/4/21/el-salvadors-bukele-suggests-prisoner-swap-for-venezuelans-deported-by-us
This also raises questions as to where they go from here in Abrego Garcia’s case, as their threat to send him back to Bukele if the judge grants him bail seems, I don’t know, beyond the pale? Not that they’ve balked at venturing into that territory already.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/07/16/kilmar-abrego-garcia-heraing-charges-00459152
Correction to the second part of that comment: US attys haven’t been threatening to send him back to Bukele (KAG is Salvadoran and has a previous court order not to be returned there), but to an unspecified other country.
Thanks, Marcy.
I think the link at: “including this declaration in the latter docket is not working [?].
Rayne brought up some interesting [related?] items in this April discussion:
https://www.emptywheel.net/2025/04/08/supreme-court-starts-cleaning-up-kristi-noems-sloppy-messes/#comment-1094204
added: Also, scroll up for link from Savage Librarian.
I’d like to know if there are still some [how many?] of TRUMP’s kidnappees at CECOT.
One of Rayne’s links is from AP on 2/1/25 [ie: 12 days after inauguration]:
Venezuela frees 6 Americans after meeting between President Maduro and Trump’s envoy [Grenell]
The latter docket is J.O.P. v. Department of Homeland Security (https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/15867241/jop-v-us-department-of-homeland-security/?page=2), and the declaration is Exhibit A in document 352.
In addition, in J.G.G. v. Trump (https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69741724/jgg-v-trump/?page=2), the ACLU notified Judge Boasberg about the declaration and said “In light of these developments, Plaintiffs respectfully request that this Court request an immediate status update from the government as to whether it is prepared to bring the members of the class back to the United States for habeas proceedings.” (document 168), so I’m curious what will happen there.
There should still be Salvadoran deportees at CECOT. IIRR, there were 23 on the 3/15 flights (minus Abrego Garcia, since returned), and a few more on 3/31, though I’m not sure how many.
Thanks for all that help, c-i-v-i-l!
The dueling Grenell/Rubio offers confirms my suspicions that, probably because Trump has no idea what any of the people who work for him do, he just keeps telling different people to make something happen until it happens, without telling them who else might be working to make it happen.
I wonder how many people are working in isolation on various tariff deals around the world – one reason you might not want to make a deal with the US now, is that you’re already talking to multiple people who obviously aren’t talking to each other, so you just let them bid against each other forever.
Not understanding the Chevron aspect of this story.
Originally, Chevron was to be allowed to operate in Venezuela through April 3. That deadline was extended (in late-March) to May 27. Which then was extended another 60 days, the same day Grenell met with Maduro reps in Antigua, a week before the May deadline. (latintimes, 5/20/25)
Per NYT 7/8/25 cited above, these extensions took place despite Florida Republicans’ objections.
Grenell claimed he didn’t believe Trump would swap out his gang members and was surprised when he found out? Which I guess is why he may have felt empowered to offer…what, exactly? (Or maybe because he’s been acting like a shadow SoS so much longer than Rubio has been actually been SoS?)
In any event, Reuters reported in May that traders have rebranded over $1 billion worth of Venezuelan oil exports as “Brazilian” to circumvent sanctions.
Fascinating, thanks for sharing.
Oh yeah…that “rebranding” was enabled by Trump V.1 when he pulled the US out of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) in November 2017, near the time that Jared Kushner had his pajama party with MBS in Saudi Arabia.
EITI was intended to reduce corruption and funding for terrorism by improving monitoring of the oil supply chain.
I’ve thought this was related to Trump’s war crime stealing Syrian oil toward the end of his first term, but now it looks like there could be other uses for this exit from EITI. Were these traders in the US, I wonder?
I should also note that in 2019 Russia had private military contractors in Venezuela to protect Maduro’s control of the presidency. Not clear how Russia’s foreign policy and share of oil market fits into this equation but there must have been some interest.
Was there anyone in particular that the Trump Administration wanted freed from the Venezuelan prison?
That’s one thing I’m wondering.
I’ve been watching the case of this Special Forces guy who claims that he was ordered to go try to overthrow Maduro.
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flmd.430570/gov.uscourts.flmd.430570.109.0.pdf
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flmd.430569/gov.uscourts.flmd.430569.1.0.pdf
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/68999587/united-states-v-macdonald-goudreau/?order_by=desc
And remember that Rudy’s Ukrainian capers were being funded by a Venezuelan guy.
If the point was to get the Americans released from Venezuela, why did the Trump administration kidnap the Venezuelans here in the US and then send them to El Salvador? Why go through a third party? Why not negotiate with Maduro directly and make the offer to send all of the Venezuela asylum seekers back to Venezuela in exchange for the 10 Americans?
I feel like I’m missing something here. I should see how the White House is spinning this and the MAGA world take on it. Much like the incredulity over the President of the United States being unable to force El Salvador to send the men back, I find it really odd that POTUS needed Bukele do make this prisoner swap happen. It makes the Trump administration look impotent. Again.
Agreed. And another thing: Trump is incapable of longterm thinking. He just riffs off whatever is in front of him and when asked to pick a strategy from a list of alternatives he just says yes. Like his tariff policy, which he insists is both a permanent protection of American businesses and a temporary negotiating tactic to get better deals; so nobody knows what the hell he’s doing.
I think this started when Trump first heard of El Salvador’s torture prison and it appealed to his cruelty. Then after he became president he said it out loud to his staff and they made it happen, both to please him and because they wanted to assert their right to ignore the courts. Then once this blew up in their faces they went with whatever options they could think of.
That’s what we’re seeing over and over with Trump this term. There’s no plan. Trump is just hopping from whim to whim and can’t even remember what he said five minutes earlier. A staffer who Trump praises one minute is getting yelled at for doing the thing Trump asked for the next. We don’t have a president. We have a mad king surrounded by sycophants and grifters with their own agenda.
I also feel something is missing here. Is it crypto? Bukele has tried to run El Salvador on this highly launderable asset.
In this situation the Trump administration’s domestic policy is colliding with its foreign policy, forcing them to interface in ways that show the ugly seams holding the whole mess together.
Trump has farmed out his domestic policy–aside from tariffs–to Stephen Miller, because that domestic policy consists solely of crushing immigrants (and their allies) with terrorist tactics. (Russ Vought, meanwhile, uses OMB to pursue the Christian nationalist Project 2025 goals; now that Elon is gone, this is both easier in that less attention is being paid, and harder in that Musk took his “chainsaw” with him.)
Foreign policy…well, not this administration’s long suit, as witness Trump’s fumbling with Ukraine and Russia, and bombing Iran to little purpose. But the Trump/Miller domestic policy implicates foreign policy choices when those immigrants get shipped overseas. The botched handling of Kilmar Abrego Garcia (and so many others) reveals the weakness of letting Stephen Miller run wild with the whole show.
Trump is really only there to hog credit for any “successes” (made-up by him out of whole cloth) and pass off the blame to whomever he doesn’t like that week. Hence a cabinet stocked with suck-ups whose greatest (and in some cases only) talent is kissing his derriere.
Grenell offered the other side better terms than Rubio? LMAO. Rookie mistake from a bunch of left behind rookies. But coordination has never been one of Trump’s or his administration’s strong suits. I suppose he thinks it looks too much like homework.
Interesting
I had figured that the demonstrative, shocking cruelty of the Venezuelan CECOT deportations was reason enough, which—I’m saddened to say—appears to have been a successful Stephen Miller strategy to deter would-be immigrants, following the family-separation policy of the first term. But perhaps there was more.
Also, I believe the administration wanted to get Maduro to start accepting deportation flights again.
They deported a guy with a green card to Guatemala, when he went in to replace his card after he lost his wallet with the card in it. The guy has a spotless record, and is more than 80 years old. A “lawyer” told his family he had died, after trying to get money from them.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/7/19/2334208/-82-Year-Old-Green-Card-Holder-Disappeared-And-Deported-By-ICE