WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump said Tuesday that the arrest in Venezuela of two U.S. citizens after an alleged invasion attempt "has nothing to do with our government."
"We just heard about it," Trump said of the incursion. "But whatever it is, we'll let you know. But it has nothing to do with our government." He spoke to reporters as he departed the White House for a visit to a factory making face masks in Arizona.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro announced the arrests Monday evening, saying two American "mercenaries" were part of a plot to infiltrate the country, incite rebellion and apprehend its leaders. He said they planned to kill him.
Maduro identified the two as Airan Berry and Luke Denman. Photographs of their identification cards have circulated on social media. They were among eight men captured on Monday when their small boat landed, allegedly from Colombia, on the Venezuelan coast west of Caracas -- where Venezuelan security forces awaited them.
Former U.S. Army Green Beret Jordan Goudreau, who on Sunday released a video announcing the launch of what he called "Operation Gideon," confirmed the identities in an interview with The Washington Post. He said the two were former U.S. Special Operations soldiers acting as "supervisors" for a force of about 60 men, primarily defected former Venezuelan security officials living in Colombia.
He also confirmed an earlier claim by Maduro's government that eight people who were part of the overall operation were separately killed, and two were captured, when their boat was intercepted Sunday.
Goudreau, who operates a Florida company, Silvercorp, that says it offers paid strategic security services, said he had known Berry and Denman for years. The three deployed to Iraq in 2010, according to an active-duty soldier who served with them in 10th Special Forces Group but did not deploy with them. The soldier spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
Goudreau has previously said the operation was designed to capture -- but not kill Maduro. He said he carried it out on a "shoestring budget" after signing an agreement with U.S.-backed Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido, who Goudreau accuses of failing to pay him.
GUAIDO DISAVOWAL
On Tuesday, Guaido said he had nothing to do with Goudreau, and that he had no relationship with Silvercorp, "for obvious and evident reasons, but we have to make that clear."
Colombian authorities also said they were not involved in the alleged plot. Guaido and government authorities said they believe Maduro loyalists infiltrated the operation.
Maduro appeared to confirm this. "We knew everything," he said in his televised Monday speech. "What they ate, what they didn't eat. What they drank. Who financed them. We know that the U.S. government delegated this as a [U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration] operation."
The DEA on Monday denied any involvement in the operation.
Efforts to reach the families of Berry and Denman for comment were unsuccessful.
Goudreau said he has engaged a lawyer in Venezuela and was reaching out to the State Department to try to secure their release.
The U.S. government "should engage and try to get these guys back," said Goudreau, who apparently did not physically participate in the operation. "These are Americans. They are ex-Green Berets. Come on."
The State Department reiterated Trump's comments that the U.S. wasn't involved, accusing Maduro of launching a "disinformation campaign" to distract the world from recent events, citing a prison riot that left more than 40 dead and dozens badly injured.
"Nothing should be taken at face value when we see the distorting of facts," a State Department spokesperson said in a statement. "What is clear is that the former regime is using the event to justify an increased level of repression."
U.S. officials said they are trying to learn more about the events, including the activities of two U.S. citizens as well as Goudreau. Answers will only come out when Maduro's "regime" has ended, the statement said.
Maduro also displayed passports, Silvercorp identification cards and images apparently depicting the two apprehended Americans in a lineup.
A former Special Operations veteran, noting that the captured Americans apparently chose to keep identifying information on them, said Tuesday that they likely did not have experience with the kind of operation they are alleged to have undertaken in Venezuela.
'HOLLYWOOD SCRIPT'
Communications Minister Jorge Rodriguez presented more details of the plot that he said resembled a "Hollywood script" fueled by the "white supremacist" ideas of its alleged American organizers.
"They thought that because we're black, because we're Indians, that they were going to easily control us," said Rodriguez, showing images of what he said were boats and training camps inside Colombia from where the insurrection was purportedly organized.
He presented video testimony from a Venezuelan military deserter, Capt. Victor Pimenta, one of 13 captured participants.
Pimenta said that a group of nearly 60 combatants left Colombia at sundown on Friday in two boats aiming to reach La Guaira along the coast near Venezuela's capital of Caracas.
The second vessel carrying the commander of the operation, Capt. Antonio Sequea, and the two Americans experienced motor problems and had to abort the mission, he said.
Initially the stranded group tried to reach the Dutch Caribbean island of Bonaire, Pimenta said, but as the vessel was running out of fuel it dropped off a group of combatants along the Caribbean coastline. Commandos from Venezuela's armed forces caught up with them.
Maduro was reelected for a six-year term in May 2018, in a vote widely viewed as fraudulent amid allegations of widespread human-rights abuses and corruption. When he was inaugurated in January 2019, the United States and more than 50 other countries that refused to recognize his government instead declared Guaido, the elected head of the Venezuelan legislature, the country's legitimate president.
The Trump administration has called on Maduro to step aside, exerting what it calls "maximum pressure" on Venezuela in the form of escalating economic sanctions, and said Russia and Cuba, Maduro's two main allies, keep his government afloat with economic, intelligence and security assistance.
'ENHANCED' OPERATIONS
The United States in March indicted Maduro and more than a dozen other officials on narcoterrorism charges, offering a $15 million reward for information leading to his capture or conviction.
In early April, the U.S. Southern Command announced "enhanced" operations in the Caribbean, which it said were directed toward stopping narcotics shipments from Venezuela that had increased by 50% "in recent years."
Venezuela is gripped by a deepening social and economic crisis under Maduro's rule that has led nearly 5 million residents to flee crumbling social services, such as unreliable water, electricity and broken hospitals.
Venezuela and the U.S. broke diplomatic ties last year, so there is no U.S. Embassy operating in Venezuela's capital of Caracas that can offer the two detained men assistance.
"It shocks me how insane they were," said Mike Vigil, the former head of international operations for the DEA. "They walked right into a coiled rattlesnake without even having minimally studied the capacity of the Venezuelan armed forces. There's no way the U.S. government would've supported an operation like this."
Information for this article was contributed by Karen DeYoung, Ana Vanessa Herrero, Anthony Faiola and Alex Hortonvenezuela of The Washington Post; and by Scott Smith, Joshua Goodman and Randy Herschaft of The Associated Press.
A Section on 05/06/2020