“This is going to land like a bomb” in the region, a former Latin America diplomatic official told the New York Times in this morning’s explosive lengthy report detailing how the Trump administration held covert meetings with Venezuelan military coup plotters targeting President Nicolás Maduro.

The “clandestine channel” involved contacts with what are described as “rebellious officers” bent on bringing about regime change with the help of Washington.

The astounding revelation — though perhaps familiar-sounding when considering the historical string of coups and CIA covert interventions across the 20th century from Cuba to Nicaragua to Chile — comes just over a month after a bizarre assassination attempt involving two C-4 explosive laden drones which detonated near Maduro as he gave a televised speech during a military parade in Caracas.

At the time the Venezuelan president pointed the finger at Washington, claiming right-wing factions connected to Columbia and Florida and backed by the United States were behind the sensational attempt on his life; meanwhile some American pundits raised the question of whether it was a ‘false flag’ staged by Maduro himself, given the strangeness of the event.

Though the August 4 events remain very much a mystery, the new revelation of White House-sponsored coup plotting meetings are sure to add fuel to Maduro’s ravings against Washington, and will further be utilized to blame external forces for causing Venezuela’s collapsing economy and failed infrastructure.

Like prior US covert action in Latin America, The New York Times finds that the White House was in bed with some very unsavory local actors:

But one of the Venezuelan military commanders involved in the secret talks was hardly an ideal figure to help restore democracy: He is on the American government’s own sanctions list of corrupt officials in Venezuela.

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