What is Venezuela really about?

Editor's note: Is it about drugs, oil, allegations of election interference using Smartmatic voting machines, or something else entirely driving the intense U.S. focus on the country? Former U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela James "Jimmy" Story (all these people like Story coming out of US degree mills are programmed in empire) is being profiled by The Grayzone for promoting U.S. regime-change policy against Nicolás Maduro in mainstream media while also leveraging his coup-related experience for private consulting work alongside former CIA officials. The partially republished material below outlines how advising firms tied to ex-CIA station chiefs and operatives involved in past destabilization efforts in Venezuela, positioning James Story at the intersection of media advocacy, lobbying, and private sector interests connected to U.S. interventionist agendas. The CIA operates (did Venezuela flip the Smartmatic voting machines against the US?) as a completely autonomous parallel state: unaccountable, insulated, and effectively detached from the U.S. government it claims to serve.
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Spook Story: Ex-US amb. to Venezuela monetizes coup-plotting alongside former CIA officials

By Jack Poulson and Max Blumenthal | December 27, 2025

While pushing for war on Venezuela in legacy media, former US ambassador Jimmy Story is soliciting clients for consulting firms run by notorious ex-CIA officials.

Editor's note: Former US ambassador to Venezuela James "Jimmy" Story has gone from de facto manager of the putschist, Washington-backed opposition in Venezuela to one of the most prominent voices promoting the Trump-Rubio regime change policy inside legacy media.

On December 7, CNN's Fareed Zakaria featured his calls for toppling Venezuela's government during a panel with convicted Iran-Contra felon Elliot Abrams, while the New York Times provided Story with space to argue that "Washington should approach dismantling the Maduro regime as we would any criminal enterprise." Story's appearance on Piers Morgan did not work out quite as well because Grayzone editor Max Blumenthal was present to dismantle his neocolonial propaganda.

While he pushes a US war on Venezuela in the media, Story is also monetizing his coup-plotting experience by soliciting clients for a series of consulting firms, where he works alongside top former CIA officials who orchestrated destabilization operations inside Venezuela.

The first of these firms is Dinámica Americas, where Story serves as a senior advisor helping "companies, philanthropies, non-profits, and multilateral and other organizations successfully navigate evolving conditions in the Americas." Among his colleagues at Dinámica is Juan Cruz, the former CIA director for Latin America, whom The Grayzone exposed for his role in managing opposition assets in the lead-up to the failed Operation Gideon mercenary invasion.

At Frontier Advisors, a risk management firm he co-founded, Story works alongside Zodiac Gold CEO David Kol, whose company exploits the mineral wealth of Liberia, which suffers from rampant smuggling and deforestation due to foreign domination of its gold mining zones. Story's fellow managing partner at Frontier, former Lt. Gen. Dave Bellon also runs a private equity firm, Global Frontier Capital, that "create[s] carbon credits to sell to investors and polluters in need of offsets" in South Asia and South America. These are precisely the kind of figures yearning to feast on the carcass of the Venezuelan state in a fantasy post-Maduro scenario.

Finally, Story is listed as "strategic partner" at Tower Strategy LLC, a lobbying firm founded by the ex-CIA station chief for Venezuela, Enrique "Rick" de la Torre. As journalist Jack Poulson explains in the article we've republished from his All Source Intelligence, de la Torre previously worked at a lobbying firm founded by one of the closest confederates of Secretary of State Marco Rubio – the lead architect of Trump's regime change strategy in Venezuela.

Below is Poulson's report originally published at All Source Intelligence: "Former CIA Venezuela chief is raiding clients from Rubio-affiliated lobbying firm while the US continues seizing oil tankers."

A former CIA chief of station for Venezuela, Enrique "Rick" de la Torre, last month formed his own lobbying firm, Tower Strategy LLC, advertising former U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela James B. Story as a "strategic partner." All four of Tower Strategy's newly registered lobbying clients were picked up through Mr. De la Torre's work at his previous employer, the D.C.-based firm Continental Strategy.

Continental was founded in 2021 by Carlos Trujillo, a former U.S. Ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS) with close ties to current U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and De la Torre widely shared a photograph of himself wearing a CIA pin next to Secretary Rubio as part of his January announcement of joining Trujillo's firm.

Please go to the The Grayzone to continue reading.
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Is the US secretary of state doing lines of coke?

The cocaine isn't coming out of Venezuela:

U.S. Coast Guard USCGC Active Medium Endurance Cutter Seizes Nearly 3 Tons of Cocaine.

Remember when the US DEA attempted removing Bolivian President Evo Morales in 2015 in a drug sting when Morales opposed US pillaging of Bolivia's resources?

Operation Naked King: Secret DEA Sting in Bolivia Confirms Evo Morales' Fears About U.S. Meddling