Florida tycoon is behind oil-for-migrants deal U.S. reached with Venezuelan strongman

[Eugene]

Source: Miami Herald

Florida tycoon is behind oil-for-migrants deal U.S. reached with Venezuelan strongman

Antonio Maria Delgado, Jay Weaver
Fri, February 7, 2025 at 1:25 PM EST·10 min read

A Florida magnate with close ties to the Republican Party helped set up the recent meeting between Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro and President Donald Trump’s special envoy, laying the groundwork for a major deal that would allow the Caracas regime to boost its oil sales to the United States in exchange for accepting hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan deportees.

Sources familiar with the negotiations told the Miami Herald that Palm Beach County-based businessman Harry Sargeant III, a major GOP donor who has sought to expand his prior oil and asphalt dealings in Venezuela, worked behind the scenes to facilitate the meeting between Maduro and the envoy, Richard Grenell, a diplomat during Trump’s first term in office.

Their talks led to a deal in which the socialist strongman agreed to accept future flights of Venezuelans deported by the Trump administration — a decision that immediately enraged Venezuelans in South Florida with temporary status who now fear they will be sent back to a nation that has suffered economic collapse under Maduro’s authoritarian rule.

The question that immediately arose for observers after the stunning news last week was whether strings were attached to the deal: What was Maduro promised by the U.S. government in exchange for agreeing to take back Venezuelans deportees?

-snip-

Read more: https://news.yahoo.com/news/florida-tycoon-behind-oil-migrants-182522184.html

[Judi Lynn]

1. Unbelievable mega-grifter arranged the meeting. Just found his Wiki:

Harry Sargeant III

From the 2nd paragraph of the posted article:

Sources familiar with the negotiations told the Miami Herald that Palm Beach County-based businessman Harry Sargeant III, a major GOP donor who has sought to expand his prior oil and asphalt dealings in Venezuela, worked behind the scenes to facilitate the meeting between Maduro and the envoy, Richard Grenell, a diplomat during Trump’s first term in office.

From Wikipedia, regarding his business dealings:

. . .

A Pentagon audit has found that the federal government overpaid Harry Sargeant III by as much as $204 million on several military contracts worth nearly $2.7 billion. The audit by the Defense Department's inspector general estimated that the department paid the oilman "$160 [million] to $204 million more for fuel than could be supported by price or cost analysis." The study also reported that the three contracts were awarded under conditions that effectively eliminated the other bidders. Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), who led the probe, asserted in a letter to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates that Sargeant had won the three jet fuel contracts, despite having among the highest bids, because he had an effective monopoly over the routes. Waxman accused Sargeant and his company of price gouging and "engaging in the worst form of war profiteering."[11]
. . .

Political activities
A longtime major Republican fundraiser and active behind the scenes in Florida politics since the mid-1990s, Sargeant has had a long-standing close relationship with former governor of Florida Charlie Crist, both being Pi Kappa Alpha, (πΚΑ fraternity brothers in the 1970s at Florida State University. Following Crist's gubernatorial victory, Crist tapped Sargeant as the state Republican Party's Finance Chairman, a non-paying post he held until early 2009. He resigned the post shortly before a Sargeant Marine employee, sales coordinator Ala'a al-Ali, was indicted for illegal donations to the campaigns of Charlie Crist and John McCain.[12]

In the 2008 presidential race Sargeant donated to onetime Republican front-runner Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, and eventual Republican nominee Senator John McCain. Crist had been considered as a possible McCain running mate in 2008 before running as an Independent candidate for the United States Senate from Florida in 2010.[13][14][15]

Sargeant loaned money to Lev Parnas, the indicted associate of Rudy Giuliani, as Parnas maneuvered to press the Ukrainian government to announce investigations that would help President Donald Trump politically. Congress released WhatsApp text messages between Parnas and Sargeant as part of materials obtained from Parnas. The messages showed that Sargeant helped fund some of Parnas’ travel and was supportive of efforts by Parnas and Giuliani to convince Trump to remove US Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch.[16]

. . .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Sargeant_III

~ ~ ~

A multitude of filthy people have been involved in these operations. They've been getting away with it for decades, apparently.

You may remember Florida-based evil bloated blob of hatred, Rush Limbaugh, to whom Trump gave a Medal of Freedom during Trump's first rancid term in the White House. Right before Limbaugh made his final circle down the toilet and withdrew to the big nasty, infested Nazi golf course in the sky.

Rush made it his business to savage Congressman Henry Waxman continually because he was such an effective, hard-working Congressman. Waxman had all their fascist numbers.

~ ~ ~

From Vanity Fair, during Trump's 1st White House Infestation, regarding the chosen envoy:

https://www.removepaywall.com/search?url=https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/02/trumps-intelligence-community-goes-orwellian#google_vignette

or:
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/02/trumps-intelligence-community-goes-orwellian


Trump’s White House

“Ric Grenell Is Now His Guardian Against Fact”: With a Sycophantic New Director, Trump’s Intelligence Community Goes Orwellian


Widely disliked by diplomats and journalists, but loved by his boss who’s made clear that “he values loyalty above all,” the nation’s new top intelligence official is a sign that Trump’s purge is spreading fast.

By Abigail Tracy
February 24, 2020



Richard Grenell in Berlin.​By ALEXANDER BECHER/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock.
With impeachment in the past, Trump’s purge days are well underway. But the appointment of Richard Grenell to temporarily serve as the nation’s top intelligence official has in particular been a source of consternation within diplomatic and intelligence circles. Large parts of the diplomatic world think Grenell is underqualified and almost comically partisan, and his elevation is seen as a harbinger of a supercharged Trumpian era where loyalty matters above everything else.
“This is clearly, unambiguously the politicization of intelligence. Trump doesn’t want information out; he doesn’t want facts. Ric Grenell is now his guardian against fact. That is basically what this amounts to,” a former administration official told me. “Ric Grenell is basically like the bumper guards at the bowling alley that you put up for kids so that they can hit some pins, that is what he is like for Trump.”
While initially tacking toward the establishment in the 2016 election, Grenell pivoted masterfully as it became increasingly clear Trump would secure the Republican nomination. He emerged as one of Trump’s most vociferous defenders and landed the coveted role of U.S. ambassador to Germany. “I give Ric a lot of credit for this, he’s an opportunist. He knew perfectly well that in order to survive in Trumpworld, you had to be a loyalist,” Mark Groombridge, a former aide to John Bolton who worked closely with Grenell at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, told me. “Everyone had to make a decision about whether you become a sycophant for Trump or you stand your ground. Ric made his decision and he’s now in a bed.”
Cozying up to the Trumps has certainly benefited Grenell professionally. In addition to his ambassadorial duties, Grenell—the highest-ranking openly gay person in the government—has taken the reins on the Trump administration’s effort to decriminalize homosexuality worldwide, and Trump tapped him to serve as special envoy for Serbia-Kosovo peace talks. And then, in a surprising twist last week, the president named Grenell as the acting director of national intelligence, a position he can hold for 210 days under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act.

https://www.removepaywall.com/search?url=https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/02/trumps-intelligence-community-goes-orwellian