{"id":205728,"date":"2026-03-25T17:15:06","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T17:15:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/205728\/"},"modified":"2026-03-25T17:15:06","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T17:15:06","slug":"david-rivera-former-congressman-accused-of-lobbying-for-venezuelas-maduro-faces-judge-in-miami-amid-trial-wsvn-7news-miami-news-weather-sports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/205728\/","title":{"rendered":"David Rivera, former congressman accused of lobbying for Venezuela\u2019s Maduro, faces judge in Miami amid trial &#8211; WSVN 7News | Miami News, Weather, Sports"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>MIAMI (WSVN) &#8211; A former congressman is set to face a judge as his trial gets underway in a Miami courtroom.<\/p>\n<p>David Rivera arrived to the federal court house in downtown Miami, Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n<p>Rivera and an associate were charged in 2022 with money laundering and failing to register as a foreign agent.<\/p>\n<p>The charges were filed after, prosecutors said, Rivera received a $50 million dollar lobbying contract from then Venezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro.<\/p>\n<p>Prosecutors allege that the contract was made to persuade the White House to normalize relations with Venezuela.<\/p>\n<p>Rivera\u2019s attorneys said the contract was exclusively meant to lure Exxon Mobil back to Venezuela, which would be exempt from the Foreign Agents Registration Act.<\/p>\n<p>Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Rivera\u2019s former roommate and friend, <a href=\"https:\/\/wsvn.com\/news\/politics\/rubio-testifies-he-didnt-know-of-allegations-an-ex-lawmaker-was-lobbying-for-venezuelas-maduro\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">testified in court Tuesday<\/a>. Rubio said he \u201cwould\u2019ve been shocked\u201d if he knew about the allegations.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 Sunbeam Television Corp. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.<\/p>\n<p>\tJoin our Newsletter for the latest news right to your inbox<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MIAMI (WSVN) &#8211; A former congressman is set to face a judge as his trial gets underway in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":205729,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[123,125,124],"class_list":{"0":"post-205728","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-miami","8":"tag-miami","9":"tag-miami-headlines","10":"tag-miami-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205728\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}