During the State of the Union address, President Trump surprised the audience with the introduction of helicopter pilot Eric Slover who was severely wounded in his legs during the successful raid in Venezuela to capture Nicholas Maduro.
Chief Warrant Officer 5 Eric Slover was repeatedly struck in the leg and hip by hostile fire as he was preparing to land. As his helicopter approached the target area, Venezuelan defense systems opened fire, and Slover was struck four times in the leg. The Chinook was also hit, but still flyable.
So, he kept flying. “One bullet after another. He absorbed four agonizing shots, shredding his leg into numerous pieces,” President Trump noted. Despite his wounds, Slover brought the aircraft and his team back to safety. Slover maintained control of the aircraft despite his wounds, executed the insertion, and ensured his crew successfully executed their objectives. He then piloted the aircraft back to the USS Iwo Jima. Within three hours, another team of helicopters would exfiltrate the assault team.
Slover is still recovering from his wounds and was standing with the assistance of a walker when he received the award. A total of seven Americans were wounded in the operation.
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman, Tom Cotton, outlines via his X account that he has reviewed the intelligence community whistleblower complaint being used in a ridiculous effort to impeach DNI Tulsi Gabbard and finds it “not credible.”
The entire construct of this CIA-NIC ‘whistleblower’ operation is transparent. We have outlined the basic parameters of the entire fiasco {GO DEEP}. The intelligence community/Lawfare operation is a replay of the 2019 intelligence community/Lawfare operation used to frame Donald Trump during the 2019 impeachment effort.
Even setting aside the insufferable politics of it all, our national enemies must be laughing at us and how easy it is to identify the background of the super-secret, classified and “highly sensitive” national security information regarding Venezuela that underpins the baseline for the CIA-NIC effort.
If a simple website can put it together, then certainly our enemies know our own intelligence community is leveraging the rules and regulations around CIA assets to frame domestic political lawfare operations.
It is stunningly embarrassing on a national level.
The Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) delivered the “read and return” intelligence report to congress that sits at the background of an anonymous whistleblower complaint against Director of National Intelligence, DNI Tulsi Gabbard. [CBS Story] In addition to delivering the report, the ICIG also delivered a declassified letter outlining the framework of the backstory [SEE HERE].
I strongly urge people to take a few minutes and read both links above, particularly the pdf of the ICIG report that frames the complaint. In essence, the same playbook the IC tried to create the impeachment narrative against President Trump (2019), they repeated against DNI Tulsi Gabbard.
Now, the story gets a little weedy, so at the risk of yet another subpoena for outlining highly classified intelligence information simply by using public sourcing information and strategic brain mapping to put dots together, the easiest way to explain what has happened is to tell the big picture story of it.
People opposed to President Trump inside the National Intelligence Council (NIC), which in 2025 was a sub-silo inside the CIA, wrote an analysis saying the Venezuela gang ‘Tren de Aragua” (TdA) was not officially affiliated with the Venezuela government. Therefore, when President Trump and Secretary Rubio defined TdA as an officially recognized terrorist group, the analysis was intended to separate the TdA violence from the official U.S. policy toward Venezuela.
[The NIC is the “federal agency” being described in the media reports. I suspect the report’s authors were Mike Collins and Maria Langan-Riekhof or close associates therein.]
The “highly classified” component to the analysis, the part that intentionally skewers the telling of the story, is almost certainly the sourcing for the NIC analysis.
Here I would estimate with 90%+ confidence, that a CIA asset within the Venezuela government was the source of the intelligence saying TdA is not officially aligned with the Venezuelan govt. That CIA asset could be someone very close to former dictator Nicholas Maduro, or someone currently inside the transitional government. That source makes the component to the NIC analysis “highly classified.” [However, it also fulfills the goals and operational agenda of the people who want to weaponize the “whistleblower angle.]
Now, I want to break out a component here because it is directly related to the reason for anti-Trump IC to manufacture this official CIA-NIC analysis. Remember, Judge James Boasberg’s argument against deporting TdA members was based on his refusal to accept the deportees were designated terrorists. Venezuela would not take them back, so President Trump sent them to the maximum-security prison in El Salvador.
President Trump and Secretary Rubio are walking carefully through a process to keep Venezuela stable and authentic to the true intents of the Venezuelan people. Toward that end, both Trump and Rubio have been very careful with Maria Corina Machado, the exiled opposition leader who claims to be the legitimate voice of the people.
Machado is loved by the United Nations, the American leftists and DC control agents. However, to avoid Machado becoming Venezuela’s Zelenskyy, President Trump and Secretary Marco Rubio are working through a three-stage process that would culminate in secure national elections to coincide with Maria Machado’s return. If she wins the hearts and minds, she will have legitimacy.
If you listen carefully to her phrases and omissions, you can clearly see where the trepidation from Trump and Rubio comes from. There are a lot of platitudes and pretenses within Venezuelan politics. Video and Transcript Below:
[TRANSCRIPT] – MARGARET BRENNAN: And we’re joined now by Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, and it is amazing to see you here in person after so long.
MARÍA CORINA MACHADO: Likewise. Thank you very much.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You met with Secretary of State Marco Rubio this past week. He said the U.S. now does not intend to have any military action or presence inside Venezuela, except for maybe at a reopened embassy there. Is that a good idea to take that military pressure off when the Maduro regime is effectively still in place?
MACHADO: Well, first of all, I have to say that on behalf of the Venezuelan people, we’re very, very grateful to the American people, and the first hand- first and foremost, to President Trump, to the secretary of state, and also to your leaders in Congress. I mean, the- the degree of support and care that we’ve felt in this fight at this moment is enormous, and I think it is clear on the- on the behalf and well being of the American people, but also of the Venezuelan people, and I would say the whole hemisphere. I do not think that the pressure is being taken away. Actually, everything Delcy Rodríguez is currently doing is because she’s complying with instructions she’s getting from the United States, and important steps are being taken. So I think that the message has been delivered, and so far, we’re seeing the results in the actions taken by the regime, and also in the mood and energy that is growing within the Venezuelan population.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio appears today before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to outline the current situation with U.S. policy toward Venezuela against the background of Nicholas Maduro being captured by the U.S. Dept of Justice. In essence, Western Hemisphere policy.
The Senate has been fraught with anxiety over the Trump administration focusing on the American continent and strengthening the U.S. position in the region. Stability in the Americas is against the interests of the corporate and banking benefactors who pay for control of Senate seats and use their influence therein.
Having come from the Senate, after fulfillment of his fourteen-year corporate obligations, Secretary of State Rubio acutely understands the voices behind those on the panel delivering the questions. Rubio outlines the goals and objectives of the Venezuelan operation by speaking directly to the concerns of the banking and financial community; in addition, he answers the questions posed by the performance actors put in place by the corporate strategists.
Video is prompted to 14:33 to cut out the narrative engineered talking points from the chair and vice-chair. Secretary Rubio outlines the BIG PICTURE. WATCH:
Energy Secretary Chris Wright appears on Face the Nation to discuss the current and future plans for oil production in Venezuela, while explaining how the current mechanism to sell the oil is operating.
[Transcript] – MARGARET BRENNAN: This morning, President Trump vowed that Venezuela now has the military protection of the US. This comes just one week after he said the US would run that country. Meanwhile, Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado is expected to travel to Washington to meet with President Trump this week. For his part, Mr. Trump and his team met with dozens of US oil executives late last week, urging them to commit $100 billion to boost oil production there. Joining us now to discuss it all is the United States Secretary of Energy, Chris Wright, good to have you here in person.
SECRETARY CHRIS WRIGHT: Thanks for having me, Margaret.
I first read and listened to the following account a few days ago and hesitated to share the story because what was described sounded surreal. However, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has also shared these details giving the account some level of potential authenticity that did not exist before.
What is described about the attack on the compound of Nicolas Maduro is quite remarkable. All electronic countermeasures, including radar were rendered ineffective after initial U.S. military strikes.
Then a wave of drones moved in and began targeting specific infrastructure. Then a network of Venezuelan aircraft was destroyed on the ground. Then the helicopters arrived and the technology with the U.S. soldiers’ weapons was unlike anything the Cuban/Venezuelan military had ever encountered.
Maduro was being protected by approximately 300 armed soldiers. One of Maduro’s guards survived with injuries and gave an account in Spanish [LINK] that was also shared in English translation [LINK] The original video is below the transcript.
[TRANSCRIPT] – This account from a Venezuelan security guard loyal to Nicolás Maduro is absolutely chilling—and it explains a lot about why the tone across Latin America suddenly changed.
Security Guard: On the day of the operation, we didn’t hear anything coming. We were on guard, but suddenly all our radar systems shut down without any explanation. The next thing we saw were drones, a lot of drones, flying over our positions. We didn’t know how to react.
Interviewer: So what happened next? How was the main attack?
Security Guard: After those drones appeared, some helicopters arrived, but there were very few. I think barely eight helicopters. From those helicopters, soldiers came down, but a very small number. Maybe twenty men. But those men were technologically very advanced. They didn’t look like anything we’ve fought against before.
Energy Secretary Wright asked Chevron CEO Mike Wirth to give some information about the current status of the Venezuelan oil industry. Chevron has been on the ground in Venezuela for a long period of time and has significant infrastructure investment already in place.
Wirth notes that with current personnel (3,000) and equipment (4 locations) on site, Chevron could likely double capacity almost immediately, however, from there it would take approximately 18-months to gain more significant outputs.
President Trump asked if Chevron was in a position of advantage from already having their people and material already in operation, Wright noted generally yes, they do; however, the opportunities for industrial capacity gains are significant.
During the energy roundtable, Secretary Rubio made remarks outlining the three phases within the U.S. policy toward Venezuela. Essentially the core of the policy is: (1) Stabilization; (2) Transition, and (3) a Return to sovereign representative democracy.
The initial phase is ‘stabilization,’ where the U.S. government is working with existing leadership in Venezuela under tight controls and clear expectations. Reconciliation of political factions is supported. The U.S. leverage is maintained by financial and economic control, provided by the threat of U.S. military. Venezuela’s oil production pays for U.S. oversight.
The second phase involves ‘transition’, where the civic and governing responsibilities are shared between the existing Venezuelan leadership and aligned policy of the U.S. government. In the transitional phase the economic wealth is apportioned to the people of Venezuela with oversight by the U.S. government.
The third phase ‘sovereign representative democracy’ happens when the reformed government holds legitimate elections to decide the representative form of government, the voice of the people, within Venezuela. The U.S. influence then begins to withdraw, and new sovereign political leadership takes control.
President Trump, Vice-President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio participate in a roundtable discussion with major oil and gas executives on the issue of energy investment in Venezuela.
The primary concern for oil executives is stability within Venezuela. The Maduro government previously seized the assets of U.S. oil companies, and the investment required to restart the industry at scale are significant.
