For violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act and laundering money to “conceal and promote his criminal conduct,” former Representative David Rivera, R-Fla., was indicted Tuesday, the Justice Department announced on Wednesday.
According to the indictment, Rivera was an agent of Venezuelan national Raul Gorr n Belisario, who the Treasury Department claimed was involved in a corruption plot to bribe the country’s national treasurer.
According to the indictment presented by the grand jury, Rivera attempted to persuade top U.S. government officials on Gorr n’s behalf in an effort to get Gorr n taken off a list that had been put on him due to the alleged bribery.
Anyone who has consented to operate in a specific capacity for a foreign government, either directly or through a middleman, is required to register with the U.S. government under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).
Rivera allegedly established shell corporations to hide and publicize his crimes, according to the indictment. The indictment states that the alleged scam occurred in 2019 and 2020.
An inquiry Wednesday night was not immediately answered by the FBI Miami Field Office, which the DOJ stated is looking into the situation. A request for response from Rivera’s lawyer was also not immediately answered.
In 2022, Rivera was previously arrested and charged. In that instance, prosecutors said that Rivera attempted to act and incite others to act in the United States as an agent of a foreign principal—the Venezuelan government—without first registering with the administration of the United States.
In a statement, Rivera called the various FARA allegations “false,” according to the Miami Herald on Wednesday. He claimed that Tuesday’s indictment was just another politically motivated indictment against a Republican, just before the Trump administration restores fairness and sanity to this weaponization of the legal system.
Between 2011 to 2013, Rivera was a member of Congress.
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