President Donald Trump described the motivations for his weekend raid in Venezuela plainly: ousted President Nicolás Maduro and his wife were captured to face narco-terrorism charges in the U.S., and regime change was necessary to curb corruption, address immigration and “get the oil flowing the way it should be.”
But for many of MAGA’s most faithful and conspiracy-minded, Trump’s actions in Venezuela were really about righting an old wrong: the “stolen” 2020 election.
“It’s about Venezuela being the base of election fraud,” conspiracist host Alex Jones said on his internet show Sunday night. Jones — best known for his false claims that the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School had been faked — told his followers that Maduro is planning to reveal “State’s evidence exposing the Democrat Party’s history of election theft.”
“It’s gonna be wild when Maduro tries to plead to lesser charges by proffering evidence that the 2020 election was stolen.”
– Sean Davis, chief executive of The Federalist
The indictment against Maduro on narco-terrorism and conspiracy charges does not mention the U.S. presidential election. The White House did not respond to MS NOW’s request for comment.
The stolen election theory could help resolve some cognitive dissonance within the MAGA movement over Maduro’s ousting — namely, reconciling the idea of “America First” with Trump’s surprise invasion of a sovereign nation, the capture of its leader, and the U.S. assuming responsibility for running the country indefinitely.
“We don’t consider Venezuela our neighborhood,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said Sunday on “Meet the Press.” Monday marked her final day in office, following her public break with President Trump and subsequent resignation.
Others more supportive of the president, including former journalist Lara Logan, right-wing pollster Rasmussen Reports and various MAGA creators, are using the opportunity to revisit the half-decade-old conspiracy theory.
Ed Martin, Trump’s weaponization czar at the Department of Justice, shared an X post by Sean Davis, chief executive of The Federalist, who wrote on Sunday: “It’s gonna be wild when Maduro tries to plead to lesser charges by proffering evidence that the 2020 election was stolen.”
“!” Martin added in his own post.
In another thread on X, retired general and former national security adviser Michael Flynn urged the president to “ask former Venezuelan President Maduro who in the United States worked with him to overthrow the 2020 election.”
Claims of a stolen election have persisted among Trump’s supporters since his loss in 2020. The posited proof for those theories — repeatedly rejected by U.S cybersecurity officials and courts — are varied, but one recurring storyline goes that Venezuela stole the 2020 election for Joe Biden by controlling voting machines used in the U.S.
These theories largely center around voting machine companies Smartmatic and Dominion Voting Systems. Election deniers alleged that Smartmatic was founded in Venezuela to rig elections and that its technology, sometimes falsely linked to Dominion, was used to switch votes in swing states in 2020. In fact, Smartmatic devices were only used in Los Angeles, where results matched long-standing patterns. Federal and state election officials and audits have concluded that the 2020 election was secure, and that no voting systems — including Dominion and Smartmatic — were compromised.
Conspiracists who have held to the baseless theory have faced real consequences. Some 1,270 rioters were convicted of crimes related to the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol (and granted clemency by Trump in his second term). The state of New York disbarred Rudy Giuliani in 2024 over his assertions about Venezuela’s interference. Former Trump lawyer Sidney Powell pleaded guilty in Georgia to election interference charges and was sanctioned and fined in federal court for her sham lawsuits alleging election fraud. The same false claims were central to both a $787.5 million defamation settlement paid by Fox News to Dominion Voting Systems and Trump’s own 2023 indictment.
While crackpot theories about a Venezuela-backed plot to steal the 2020 election are provably wrong, it’s possible that Trump — who still refuses to accept that he fairly lost the 2020 election — believes Maduro played a role in his defeat. In November, The Guardian reported that the Department of Justice was interviewing conspiracy theorists known for promoting claims that Venezuela helped steal the U.S. election.
And then there are Trump’s late-night social media “Truths,” which suggest — if anything can truly be gleaned from the president’s posting habits — that the idea of Venezuelan election interference remains very much on his mind. In a Truth Social spree early Monday, Trump shared multiple posts about the 2020 election, including several that suggested his actions in Venezuela were the result of the country’s election tampering (claims which, to be clear, aren’t based in reality). At around 1 a.m., the president shared a post from QAnon conspiracist Chad Vivas, who goes by @KAGdrogo online. “Trump just posted this video about Dominion voting machine fraud. You think the timing is coincidence?” the post read. The original claims of Venezuela’s election meddling came from a trio of election deniers that far-right commentator Emerald Robinson has dubbed “the three musketeers:” Patrick Byrne, former Overstock CEO and financial backer of dubious election-fraud investigations; Gary Berntsen, a retired CIA officer who calls himself “Patient Zero” of the 2020 election theft claims and says he was Rudy Giuliani’s and Sidney Powell’s original source; and Martin Rodil, a Venezuelan-born consultant who has in the past provided incriminating information about the corrupt Maduro regime to the U.S. government. On Monday, Byrne seemed to take credit for the military operation in Venezuela, responding to a post on X about the “three musketeers” finally breaking through to Trump. Byrne did not respond to a direct message requesting comment. Dominion sued Byrne for defamation in 2021, alleging he “manufactured and promoted fake evidence to convince the world that the 2020 election had been stolen as part of a massive international conspiracy.” Byrne has denied the claims and the case is ongoing On Alex Jones’ show Monday, Byrne beamed. “I got my happy feet on today,” he said.
Brandy Zadrozny is a senior enterprise reporter for MS NOW. She was a previously a senior enterprise reporter for NBC News, based in New York. Recommended
