Election deniers and MAGA influencers are assured that the US seize of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro has nothing to do with oil or drug trafficking. As a substitute, they’re certain it’s all linked to unfounded claims that the Venezuelan authorities rigged the 2020 election in former president Joe Biden’s favor.
President Donald Trump and his administration seem to have boosted these conspiracy theories.
Within the days after Maduro’s seize on January 3, Trump shared a flurry of posts on his Fact Social platform about election fraud, together with ones associated to Dominion Voting Techniques. Different MAGA influencers posted about Smartmatic, one other election firm.
Each Dominion and Smartmatic, firms that make voting machines and the software program that runs on them, turned central targets of disinformation campaigns following the 2020 election, with election deniers claiming the machines had been a part of a supposed conspiracy to elect Biden. These claims had been repeatedly disproven: In 2023, Fox Information agreed to pay Dominion virtually $800 million to settle a defamation lawsuit about Fox’s claims about Dominion’s voting machines.
However throughout the web, conspiracy theories about these voting firms are again, with election deniers and MAGA loyalists claiming that Venezuela’s authorities conspired with Smartmatic to steal elections. This, some conspiracy theorists declare, is partially why the US was compelled to invade Venezuela.
QAnon influencer Chad Vivas, who has been pictured with Trump prior to now, flagged a put up from Trump on January 3 about Dominion, writing: “You assume the timing is coincidence? A Venezuelan Army Intelligence whistleblower confirmed the CIA outsources election rigging expertise like Smartmatic and Dominion from Venezuela.”
Trump later shared a screenshot of Vivas’ X put up on Fact Social. “Affirmation from the Boss,” Vivas wrote in response.
Sean Davis, the CEO of the Federalist, a conservative journal, wrote on X: “It’s gonna be wild when Maduro tries to plead to lesser costs by proffering proof that the 2020 election was stolen.” In response, Ed Martin, a pardon legal professional on the Justice Division, responded by quoting Davis’ put up and including an exclamation mark. “Medicine could also be a problem in Maduro’s seize, however I feel the actual cause is that Venezuela was getting used to launder election rigging expertise by the Deep State,” Jordan Sather, a outstanding QAnon promoter, wrote on his Telegram channel.
The White Home didn’t reply to questions on whether or not alleged election-rigging factored into the choice to invade Venezuela.
Within the days and weeks after the 2020 election, Trump and his authorized workforce pushed wild conspiracy theories in a bid to overturn the outcomes of the vote, regardless of Trump’s personal officers on the time saying the election was essentially the most safe in historical past.
Main that cost was Sidney Powell, considered one of Trump’s legal professionals who was among the many first to push claims about Venezuelan involvement. In November 2020, Powell cited nameless and unverified affidavits from a former Venezuela army official to assert that voting firm Smartmatic helped the Venezuelan authorities rig elections in that nation, whereas suggesting the corporate had carried out one thing comparable to assist Biden win.
In latest days, Powell has been celebrating Trump’s motion in Venezuela and selling claims that Venezuela was behind unproven vote rigging in 2020, together with an X put up from Emerald Robinson, who hosts a present on LindellTV, a streaming platform owned by election denier Mike Lindell.
Robinson has regularly promoted the Venezuela election conspiracy principle. This week, Robinson claimed that she had been focused for pushing these claims, together with Powell, Lindell, and Rudy Giuliani, all of whom have additionally claimed that the 2020 election was rigged.
