US direction of the regime change operation in Venzuela

Jessica Donati and Vivian Salama report for the Wall Street Journal, Pence Pledged U.S. Backing Before Venezuela Opposition Leader’s Move 01/25/2019. In case anyone was still wondering whot might be calling the shots in this regime change operation:

In case anyone was wondering who is directing the regime change operation in Venzuela, the Wall Street Journal lays it out. "The night before Juan Guaidó declared himself interim president of Venezuela, the opposition leader received a phone call from Vice President Mike Pence.

... That late-night call set in motion a plan that had been developed in secret over the preceding several weeks, accompanied by talks between U.S. officials, allies, lawmakers and key Venezuelan opposition figures, including Mr. Guaidó himself."

If the following is true, we can safely conclude that Trump himself hasn't been directly involved in this operation very much: "The gripping sequence of events presented a rarely seen side of Mr. Trump’s foreign policy, one that was preconceived, tightly coordinated and carried out swiftly and efficiently."

The second-to-last paragraph mentions, "The State Department served notice to the Federal Reserve Thursday that Mr. Guaidó is the agent for access to Venezuelan assets in U.S. banks, the senior administration official said."

Fabiola Santiago, obviously a big fan of the regime change operation, seems to be a bit embarrassed about how crass the Republicans are being in claiming credit for engineering it (Credit for rebellion against Maduro goes to Venezuelan people — not Rubio or Trump Miami Herald 01/24/2019): "don’t be so quick, Washington and Caracas, to give all the credit for what’s happening in Venezuela to Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and President Donald Trump."

After all, they are supposed to pretend that they're just helping an oppressed people fight for democracy and human rights and not at all oil for American corporations.

Sen. Bernie Sanders tweeted the following: