Welcome to Pay Dirt—exclusive reporting and research from The Daily Beast’s Lachlan Markay on corruption, campaign finance, and influence-peddling in the nation’s capital. For Beast Inside members only.
With Venezuela still in political chaos, the opposition leader whom the U.S. has recognized as the nation’s new president is beefing up his political muscle in Washington in the hopes of securing additional political support.
While foreign leaders hiring lobbyists to secure such support is standard, the Venezuelan presidency is still very much in a disputed position. That has resulted in a very strange situation in Washington, where the same political entity—the Venezuelan government—currently has two different influence brokers, each representing a different party who claims to be the nation’s rightful leader.