1 of 2 | Secretary of State Marco Rubio is scheduled to testify today against his friend, former U.S. Rep. David Rivera. Photo by Aaron Schwartz/UPI | License Photo
Secretary of State Marco Rubio is scheduled to testify Tuesday against his longtime friend who is facing charges of money laundering and acting as an unregistered foreign agent for Venezuela.
Prosecutors allege that between 2017 and 2018, David Rivera and Esther Nuhfer, Rivera’s former business partner, lobbied U.S. officials — including Rubio — on behalf of former president Nicolás Maduro’s government to reestablish diplomatic relations between the United States and Venezuela.
At the time, relations between the countries were hostile. President Donald Trump had begun sanctions against Maduro. In early January 2026, the United States captured Maduro and his wife, brought them to New York and charged them with drug trafficking.
Rubio and Rivera became friends as campaign volunteers in Miami in the 1990s, and both became young state legislators. They bought a house together in Tallahassee and eventually got elected to the House of Representatives.
The indictment said that Rivera, 60, and Nuhfer, 51, acted as foreign agents without registering with the Department of Justice, which violates the Foreign Agents Registration Act. It also accuses them of laundering money to conceal his criminal conduct.
Rubio is not named in the indictment and has not been accused of any crime.
The trial began Monday in Miami.
Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas; former Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway; and former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Otto Reich are also scheduled to testify.
Rubio acknowledged his friendship with Rivera in an interview with WFOR in 2022.
“The guy and I were roommates in Tallahassee over a decade-and-a-half ago … he’s someone I’ve known for a very long time. We’ve worked closely; but not on this,” Rubio said. “In the end, it’s nothing to do with me … The truth of the matter is that it has nothing to do with me, but people like to ask it because they think it would be interesting if there was something there … nothing to do with me.”
Rivera signed a $50 million contract with PDV USA, the U.S. subsidiary of Venezuela’s state-run oil company, in 2017, the indictment said. He was hired to lobby American politicians to improve relations with Venezuela. The company wanted to prevent “the United States from imposing additional economic sanctions” against Venezuela’s president and “other members of his regime.”
“The final contract signed by David Rivera provided for five installment payments of $5 million each and a final payment of $25 million, for a total of $50 million over the course of three months,” according to the indictment. It also alleged that the two created invoices on their company’s letterhead that were sent to state oil executives in Caracas.
Rubio’s office confirmed to CNN in 2022 that he met with Rivera in 2017, then met with a close associate of Maduro.
“Senator Rubio communicated directly what he has said publicly for over five years,” a Rubio spokesperson said at the time, “that the only way sanctions should be lifted is if the regime agrees to free and fair elections. If, as is alleged, this was an effort to soften his stance on sanctions, it failed miserably.”
The spokesperson also noted that the indictment said the group never told Rubio that they were lobbying for Venezuela.
Federal prosecutors allege Rivera, Nuhfer and two others “frequently attempted to hide the subject matter of their discussions by using code words to refer to certain individuals and other items.”
It said they called Maduro “El Guaguero” (the bus driver), a U.S. congressman “the hat,” money as “La Luz” (the light), and millions of dollars as “melones” (melons).
This week in Washington
President Donald Trump presents the Commander in Chief’s Trophy to the Navy Midshipmen football team during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House on Friday. The award is presented annually to the winner of the football competition between the Navy, Air Force and Army. Navy has won the trophy back to back years and 13 times over the last 23 years. Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI | License Photo
