Menendez reiterates call for DOJ to probe former Florida lawmaker

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) reiterated his call for the Justice Department to investigate former Rep. David Rivera (R-Fla.) for his alleged work for Venezuela's Maduro regime.

In a Wednesday letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, Menendez, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he was concerned that the DOJ has made little progress into “serious and credible allegations” that Rivera failed to register as a foreign agent despite working for Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A., Venezuela’s state-owned oil company. Menendez previously sent a letter to former Assistant Attorney General John Demers on May 18, 2020, to request an investigation into the matter.

“If Mr. Rivera carried out work that requires registration under [the Foreign Agent Registration Act], it is imperative that the Justice Department ensure he is held to account,” Menendez wrote. “The American people deserve to know whether a former Republican member of Congress was secretly doing the bidding of a dictator responsible for committing crimes against humanity in Venezuela.”

Rivera, who represented parts of South Florida until 2013, could not be reached for comment.

The Justice Department declined to comment on this story.

Venezuela’s state-owned oil company hired Rivera’s firm, Interamerican Consulting, with a $50 million agreement to provide “strategic consulting services” to Petróleos de Venezuela. Petróleos de Venezuela’s subsidiary company in the United States eventually sued Rivera, seeking to recover $15 million paid to Rivera’s firm, according to the New York Times. The company’s lawsuit claims that the consulting firm performed “no meaningful services under the agreement.”

In an unrelated matter, the Federal Election Commission fined Rivera almost $500,000 last year, claiming that the Republican funded a candidate in 2012 in order to weaken his primary challenger.