Rivera advises wealthy Venezuelan to mislead Herald about meeting with Pence

A former congressman advised a Venezuelan businessman to mislead a reporter about his Miami breakfast meeting in June 2017 with then-Vice President Mike Pence, even as the two men were secretly lobbying for Venezuela’s government.

The revelation was brought to light this week in the Miami federal trial of David Rivera, the former Miami-Dade congressman who has been accused by the Justice Department of not registering as a foreign agent after securing a $50 million contract in 2017 with the U.S. arm of the Venezuelan national oil company.

Rivera, in an email introduced by prosecutors at the trial, strongly advised Raúl Gorrín, the wealthy businessman with ties to Nicolás Maduro, to deny to the Miami Herald and el Nuevo Herald that he was involved in a “lobbying effort” on behalf of the Venezuelan government.

Rivera told Gorrín he should say the encounter with Pence happened later on June 15, 2017, during Pence’s speaking engagement at Florida International University, which Gorrín attended — not at the Hilton Hotel on Biscayne Boulevard, where Pence and Gorrín met privately at the breakfast meeting.

Ballard Partners, the influential lobbying firm close to President Donald Trump, arranged the meeting for Gorrín and other clients so they could meet the vice president.

Six months later, a photo of Pence and Gorrín shaking hands appeared in a story by the Miami Herald and el Nuevo Herald. The article noted how Gorrín was trying to broker an exit strategy for Maduro’s beleaguered socialist government with the first Trump administration.

Rivera, 60, had just signed the $50 million contract with the U.S. subsidiary of Venezuela’s national oil company, PDV USA, and expressed concern that Gorrín would have to register as foreign agent working on behalf of Venezuela under a U.S. transparency law.

“They want to write that there is a Venezuelan businessman [Gorrín] with ties to or access to Maduro who is trying to influence US policy toward Venezuela,” Rivera emailed Gorrín on Dec. 18, 2017, referring to a Herald reporter’s inquiry about the Pence-Gorrín meeting. “This would require registration as a foreign agent. I think it’s best to nip this in the bud in a very brief and direct manner, and not respond to these people any further.”

Rivera, who paid Gorrín about $4 million for helping him land the consulting contract with PDV USA, could not be reached for comment on Wednesday. He and political consultant Esther Nuhfer, 51, have been charged with conspiring against the United States when they didn’t register as agents for Venezuela in 2017.

Coaching on how to mislead the press

Rivera’s coaching of Gorrín went beyond the Pence meeting, however.

The former Republican congressman told Gorrín how to respond to a series of questions from Herald/el Nuevo reporter Antonio Maria Delgado in December 2017, including questions about meetings Rivera and Gorrín had with Marco Rubio, then the Republican senior senator from Florida, and Pete Sessions, the GOP Texas congressman, court records show.

Asked if it were true that Gorrín was trying to arrange a meeting with President Trump and key administration officials and whether he met with Trump, Rivera advised him to say, “No and no.”

Asked which U.S. government or congressional officials Gorrín met with, Rivera advised him to say, “None.”

Asked if Gorrín’s effort included presenting the Trump administration with a strategy for initiating a transition process in Venezuela, Rivera advised him to say: “There is no ‘lobbying effort.’ I am a businessman, not a politician or diplomat.”

Asked when and why Gorrín hired Rivera, the former congressman advised him to say: “I have never hired Mr. Rivera.”

Asked what meetings Rivera arranged for Gorrín, Rivera advised him to say: “None. I have never hired Mr. Rivera for anything.”

Finally, Gorrín was asked whether he, Rivera or a representative of the lobbying firm Ballard Partners ever contacted Sen. Rubio’s office — and, if so, why. Rivera advised Gorrín to say: “I have never contacted Marco Rubio’s office, and no one has done so on my behalf.”

Rubio meetings

In fact, Rivera and others met twice with Rubio in 2017, court records show.

In the first meeting, Rivera and Rubio met at the senator’s residence in Washington on July 9, 2017. They discussed how Gorrín could broker Maduro’s exit. Rivera and Rubio were longtime allies, having been roommates when they served in the Florida Legislature. Rubio was the speaker of the Florida House from 2006 to 2008.

On July 12, 2017, Rubio met with Rivera, Nuhfer, Gorrín and others at the Marriott Hotel off Connecticut Avenue in Washington rather than Rubio’s office because he didn’t trust Gorrín.

Rubio testified during Rivera’s trial that he thought the meeting was going to be about Gorrín’s role to obtain a letter from Maduro indicating his willingness to hold democratic elections in Venezuela. But Gorrín spent the meeting talking about how life was bad in Venezuela.

Rubio testified during the trial that he had no idea Rivera had secured the highly profitable agreement with PDV USA when he met with him.

READ MORE: Rubio testifies he was ‘unaware’ of Rivera’s $50M deal with Venezuelan subsidiary

Rivera also met with Sessions, Nuhfer, Gorrín and a Venezuelan opposition leader at Gorrín’s apartment in New York City in April 2017. Rivera also met separately with Sessions and then-Venezuelan foreign minister Delcy Rodriguez on the same day.

Rivera, Sessions and others — excluding Nuhfer — also flew to Caracas for a meeting in April 2018 with Maduro at Gorrín’s palatial estate, but the “back channel” gathering failed to mend the tattered relations between Venezuela and the United States.

During this period, Ballard Partners represented Gorrín’s Caracas TV station Globovision, which was trying to expand into the U.S. market, between June 2017 and August 2018.

Tried to get letter to Trump

Brian Ballard, the head of the lobbying firm, testified at Rivera’s trial that he disclosed the contract with Globovision on a lobbying form filed with the U.S. Senate. Ballard, who testified as a government witness about the Pence-Gorrín meeting at the Hilton Hotel in Miami, said he ended the contract because his firm was not making progress and that he had misgivings about Gorrín.

Trial evidence showed that another Ballard lobbyist collaborated with Gorrín on a June 24, 2017, draft letter, which Gorrin had hoped to deliver to Trump at a presidential victory event in Washington four days later.

“Please tell me who I can work with in your administration to bring about the change we desperately need.” Gorrín wrote in the letter, which he wanted to deliver to the president at a Trump-Pence victory event at the Trump International Hotel in Washington on June 28, 2017 — two weeks after Gorrín had met with Pence at the Hilton in Miami.

But Gorrín was unable to hand his letter to Trump at the Washington event because of restrictions imposed by the Secret Service. While he attended the event, Gorrín never met Trump.

More charges

A year later, Gorrín was charged with foreign corruption and money laundering in federal court in South Florida. He was also charged in another foreign corruption case in the same court in late 2024. He’s considered a fugitive wanted by U.S. authorities.

Also in late 2024, Rivera was charged again with secretly working as an unregistered foreign agent in the United States — this time in Washington, for trying to lobby a Trump administration official between 2019 and 2020 on behalf of Gorrín. Authorities say Gorrín paid Rivera $5.5 million while trying to get himself removed from a federal government sanctions list.

In early January U.S. military forces seized Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, from a compound in Caracas and brought them to the United States to face drug-trafficking charges in New York.

Maduro was replaced by Delcy Rodriguez, the former vice president. As Venezuela’s foreign minister in 2017, prosecutors say, Rodriguez had ordered the U.S. subsidiary of the country’s national oil company, PDV USA, to sign the $50 million contract with Rivera’s consulting company in Miami.

Prosecutors Harold Schimkat and Roger Cruz say Rivera and Nuhfer used that contract — which resulted in Rivera’s firm getting paid $20 million before the Venezuelan government cut off the deal — as a cover to “normalize” relations between Venezuela and the United States.

Rivera paid Nuhfer about $4 million for making introductions that led to his alliance with Gorrin, prosecutors say. Rivera also paid Miami real estate developer Hugo Perera about $5 million for connecting him to Gorrin, who had access to Maduro.

The defendants’ lawyers, who will put on their case starting on Monday after four weeks of trial, say Rivera and Nuhfer were not required to register as foreign agents because they were working for the U.S. subsidiary of Venezuela’s national oil company, which operates as Houston-based Citgo in the United States — not Maduro’s government.

This story was originally published April 22, 2026 at 4:38 PM.