Posted on 01/05/2026 5:42:14 AM PST by MtnClimber
I was inspired to write this by a more than routinely interesting article by Wayne Root, “Trump Brings Back Maduro to USA. Why? I’m Betting This is About Stolen 2020 Election.”
That article affected me in a surprisingly personal way. It impelled me to talk about some things I have mainly kept on the down low, including the story of why I resigned from The Epoch Times, and how a recent book of mine had to be printed twice, and why that might relate to the secrets of dictators.
Mr. Root writes of several things, which you should read at the link, but what most caught my attention was this:
“Was this strike on Venezuela primarily about drugs? Or is that just a wonderful bonus?
“Was the real purpose to prove the 2020 election was stolen?”
It could have had several additional purposes, including scaring the you-know-what out of Cuba and Iran and once again putting on notice President Trump’s “good friend” Xi Jinping, who had an emissary in Caracas that day making a deal that could have augured poorly for the West, maybe even boxed it in.
If that isn’t enough, the secrets of dictators are wide-ranging. This man would likely know about payments (i.e., bribes) to officials worldwide on behalf of the cartels, including in the highest echelons of Washington, DC. We shall see what emerges after negotiations between US authorities and Nicolas Maduro and his attorneys. It’s easy to imagine Maduro living out his life in Moscow in return for some rather dramatic information.
But back to Root’s root, stolen elections.
My life intersected, or maybe collided, with this contentious issue during the 2020 election, when, working for The Epoch Times, I drove from Nashville to Atlanta to investigate the Fulton County, Georgia, recount. I had been given the name Garland Favorito, the man who co-founded, roughly 16 years ago, VoterGA (as in Georgia), an election-integrity nonprofit.
I located Mr. Favorito, a likable fellow close to my age, at the State Farm Arena, where the recount was taking place. He was there every day, observing from a row of empty seats not more than thirty feet from the election workers doing the counting near a handful of the controversial Dominion voting machines.
I sat down next to him. It was hard to understand what was going on. Eventually, I asked him, pointing to the Dominion machines and not expecting much of an answer, “Are those things connected to the internet?”
“Come on. I’ll show you,” was Favorito’s surprising response.
He stood and gestured for me to follow. We walked a few feet to one of the machines. A black guy in a three-piece suit who worked for Dominion was standing there. Garland explained to him that he was going to show me how the machines connected to the internet. The Dominon man smiled and nodded. They evidently knew each other from Garland’s constant attendance at the recount.
Garland then took an Ethernet cable, walked a couple of steps, and inserted it into a server. “Now it’s connected,” he said. He looked over at the Dominon guy, who, as I recall, nodded in the affirmative.
That was it. I never checked whether it was really connected, nor would I have known how to do so if I had wished. But I wrote in my column for Epoch exactly what had transpired, and they published it.
A month or two later, I got a call from the editor, who claimed that Dominion was suing Epoch for $1 million because of my article. I gulped—I had never been sued before. I was told, in no uncertain terms, not to write about Dominion again or anything related to voting machines, and that an attorney would call me.
Shortly thereafter, one did, a man from faraway St. Louis. He asked if I had taken contemporaneous notes at the recount. I had, and I sent them to him. After that, I heard nothing.
Only things were changing at Epoch. I, and others whose work had previously sailed through, were suddenly having our columns spiked or severely edited. What was going on? The atmosphere had changed.
Not that long thereafter, in June 2024, The Epoch Times’ chief financial officer, Weidong “Bill” Guan, was indicted in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on federal charges including conspiracy to commit money laundering and bank fraud related to an alleged $67 million international money laundering scheme.
Guan, who has pleaded not guilty, was put on leave. I didn’t know the man, but I did know and admire the CEO, who was fired. Guan’s trial, which involves significant amounts of data disclosure, keeps getting pushed and is now set for May 2026.
Li Hongzhi, the self-described “teacher” who leads Falun Gong, the movement that runs the Epoch Times, appeared to be taking a more active role in the paper’s content, which was becoming increasingly risk-averse.
Meanwhile, I was working on the book— “American Refugees”—that gave this Substack its name. I included an account of what happened to me in the book. When Epoch got wind of it, they screamed, blocking publication unless I excised all mention of what transpired in Atlanta. What was going to happen? The book had already been printed. My friend and publisher, Roger Kimball of Encounter Books, came to the rescue and agreed to reprint the book, sans the three offending pages (I still have a couple of the originals on my shelf). Epoch paid for some of this, but it delayed publication for some time and, I can tell you, caused the author a fair amount of anguish.
Shortly thereafter, I resigned from Epoch to start this Substack. To say I'm pleased with the decision is an understatement.
But what does that add up to in the world of election fraud?
It is the micro illustrating the macro. Fear had engulfed Epoch. Like so many others, they would confront or investigate what lay before them. I was eager to take this forward, but got frozen out. They had evolved into a milquetoast publication.
But what will happen in the macro? As I was writing this, we learned that the Maduro case has been assigned to 92-year-old Clinton-appointed judge Alvin Hellerstein in the Southern District of New York. My friends at The Gateway Pundit write, “You can’t Make This Up!” Unfortunately, you can.
In better, or at least more promising, news, Trump is warning the apparently recalcitrant Venezuelan vice president, who is now in charge of her country, Delcy Rodríguez, to cooperate. I suspect she isn’t long for her role.
A lot of people don’t realize that Delcy’s brother, Jorge, is the President of their National Assembly and also, of all things, a psychiatrist. He is so disliked that he is even banned in Colombia.
I will end with something. The Epoch Times would not allow me to write for them. During the first Trump administration, it was rumored (with some substance) that the president sent Ric Grenell to Caracas to talk with Jorge Rodríguez about a deal with Maduro. I wrote Ric, whom I know slightly, about this, but got no reply. Apparently, it didn’t work out.
At roughly the same time, I was shown a forty-five-second video by two Venezuelan refugees of Jorge demonstrating how simple it was for voting machines to fix elections. They said the video was circulated to the public in Venezuela.
I was astounded. Why would Rodríguez do such a thing in the open? I didn’t understand fascist countries, the Venezuelans explained to me. They do such things in the open to scare the people, to show them how easy it is for them, so they won’t dare rebel.
I will leave it there.
And it could be that Venezuela is still interfering with our elections.
Thanks. Interesting.
Talk about Collektivist's heads exploding.
Democrats look very upset about this. Maybe they are afraid new information will be revealed during Mid-terms.
A lot of what the Clintons and other Democrats have done over the past decades has been surprisingly blatant and "in your face". I think the Left enjoys rubbing our face in it. They know they are untouchable and they want everyone to know not to try anything -- or else.
But I think Trump is re-writing that book.
Garland is tireless on election integrity.
And let’s hope something good on this front happens via Maduro.
The Dominion lawfare against Fox, et. al., was a tell. It was part of the effort to suppress investigations into 2020 voting fraud. Right now Tina Peters is sitting in a CO prison for attempting to expose voter machine fraud. Smoke...fire. I hope Trump nukes the 2020 steal.
An acquaintance of mine is a statewide trade representative for propane delivery services. I mention it as, if you think of the smallest industries you can be assured they have an active lobbying effort.
I’ve heard estimates that the drug trade is worth $2 billion dollars. The idea the drug trade isn’t covertly and not so covertly lobbying politicians is really absurd.
Venezuelans can’t pump oil out of the ground. hard to believe they could hack what would not be thousands of voting machines but more likely the counting machines used in the mail in ballot fraud. Most of the fraud occurred in democrat run cities so it’s more likely as we see in georgia, they just ran more biden votes thru the counting machines. And made sure they did not follow any chain of custody or auditing rules.
From the article:
““Was the real purpose to prove the 2020 election was stolen?”
Yes. I believe that the root reason for the capture of Maduro is the thing that, of all they did to Trump, really pisses him off the most; the stolen election. And I think Venezuela was neck deep in it.
This is the hope. That Maduro turns State’s evidence and we get Obama/Hillary.
Before they question him, they should give him a quick tour of a minimum security, “country club” prison, followed by a similar visit to the Superman in Colorado. And they might want to drag along the wife to see what the options are as well.
Interesting thought, but a mystery to me.
How could Venezuela be neck deep in the 2020 Presidential election?
I can’t get a handle on how that could be possible. However, I don’t deny the possibility.
Some of us have known this for years but weren’t believed, but we were ridiculed for believing it.
That’s “Supermax”, not “Superman” - f’n autocorrect.
Research Smartmatic voting machines...
I have always thought the 2020 election was stolen with the voting machines in key places. The machines alone would not do the trick. That is why thousands of pre filled out ballots were shipped to the places where the machines flipped votes to Biden.
They needed the paper to back the machine count in case it ended up with vote audits and recounts.
Trump knew the eve of 2020 election night that he was cheated and refused to shut up.
After Trump announced a peaceful demonstration at the Capitol, Nancy and her RAT thugs, Deep State intel minions, including RINOs like Pence, orchestrated Jan 6th. It was to put an end to any Trump objection in the Congress to the coup that had just transpired.
Thanks
Maybe a couple of nights in the Epstein Suite, first. Let me be the first to suggest that Maduro will not kill himself.
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