The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir

by John Bolton

At one thirty p.m., I met with American executives of the Citgo Petroleum Corporation, which is majority-owned by Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, to tell them we supported their efforts, and those of the Venezuelan Opposition, to keep control of Citgo’s refineries and service stations in the United States, thereby shielding them from Maduro’s efforts to assert control. (As I explained to them and others, we were also providing advice to Guaidó at his request in his efforts to nominate people to the oil company’s various boards of directors which, through subsidiaries, ultimately held Citgo’s ownership.) I referred the executives to Wilbur Ross, whom they met the next day, for advice on avoiding the effects of a Russian government lien on Venezuela’s oil company stock that might lead to a loss of control over the US assets, which was right down his alley. (From Moscow, we learned that Putin was allegedly very concerned about the roughly $18 billion Venezuela owed to Moscow; the estimates of the actual amounts owed varied widely, but they were all substantial.) The US executives told me that, earlier in the day, Venezuelans loyal to Maduro, having tried unsuccessfully to divert corporate assets before they left, had fled the US with one of Citgo’s corporate jets, headed for Caracas. I was sure we could expect more of this in the days ahead.