‘Happy Trump Lapel Pin’ From White House Oil Executive Meeting Goes Viral, ‘Where Can I Get Me One?’
Instead Schock landed in Valencia, in Carabobo province, where foreign adventurers first struck gold in 1551. Last month, Schock arrived back in Venezuela, according to a Copa Airlines flight itinerary reviewed by POLITICO, but this time he went first not to Caracas, the seat of Venezuelan government power. His campaign had failed to weaken Rubio, but when the United States military removed Maduro it left the regime in place. Schock became swept up in the trappings of his role as a global fixer. At Schock’s request, Papermaster suggested the name of a metallurgist who could refine the gold he acquired, according to a screenshot of a Feb. 18 text exchange reviewed by POLITICO.
Trump set his sights on Massie in 2020 during his first presidential term, when the congressman dared to object to a $2.2 trillion aid package to combat the coronavirus pandemic. Inspired by fellow Kentuckian Rand Paul after having put up lawn signs for the senator’s election, the libertarian-leaning Massie ran for office himself. An engineer by training, Massie designed several patents — some on display in his office — as well as a debt calculator that blinks in flashing red numerals as the nation’s deficits pile up.
The pin has been increasingly worn by Venezuelan government officials, state television anchors, lawmakers and members of the ruling party following the U.S. capture of Nicolás Maduro in a stunning nighttime raid on his residence in Caracas, Venezuela’s capital, in early January. Congress, Schock wrote, gave him “more excuses to buy time and avoid being the person I’ve always been.” He recognized that he held a position on same-sex marriage that was consistent with the leaders of his party at the time but not true to himself. From there he returned to his pre-congressional line of work, joining partners in 2016 to invest in what Schock called a “dilapidated office building” across from Los Angeles International Airport, with plans to turn it into a Hyatt Place. Accusations of sloppy — or, in some cases, entirely absent — congressional and campaign accounting piled up. The Post Style section detailed his ostentatiously appointed congressional office in the Rayburn Office Building, one apparently modeled after the red room in the British PBS period drama “Downton Abbey”.
If he managed to keep the hawks at bay during Trump’s second term, Schock told Papermaster, Rodriguez said she would award him a piece of her country’s sizable precious metals economy — his own gold mine. If handled correctly, Papermaster argued, Schock’s avocation as a Republican campaign surrogate could prove more lucrative than his chosen career in real estate. At the St. Regis Resort, he found himself sharing drinks with a business consultant he knew from Los Angeles named Benjamin Papermaster. The pay was for “strategic consulting,” according to Kise, who denied that Schock was “engaged by Mr. Sargeant as a lobbyist and was not called on to perform lobbying services.” Kise said that Sargeant did not hire Schock in an effort to lift sanctions on his oil business. In Papermaster’s telling, Sargeant saw Grenell, a skeptic about American interventionism whom Trump tapped for an ambiguous special-envoy role, as a likely champion of that agenda — and wanted Schock to help guide his approach to the new administration.
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“But I said then what I said today in court, which was my office and I could have done a better job in administrative functions at the back end of our office. “Four years ago, I left office among a lot of media flurry that I said then was overblown and unjustified,” he said at the federal courthouse in Chicago after the deferred prosecution agreement was announced. As Schock assembled a coastal real estate portfolio, whatever links remained to his time as a rising heartland politician were dissolved. I came to Congress at 27,” Schock told ABC News at the time. “I think the people that he represented thought he was a very good congressman,” said former Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, whom Schock succeeded in the district.
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- The pin has been increasingly worn by Venezuelan government officials, state television anchors, lawmakers and members of the ruling party following the U.S. capture of Nicolás Maduro in a stunning nighttime raid on his residence in Caracas, Venezuela’s capital, in early January.
- If he managed to keep the hawks at bay during Trump’s second term, Schock told Papermaster, Rodriguez said she would award him a piece of her country’s sizable precious metals economy — his own gold mine.
- Ali, Guyana’s president, also railed against the inclusion of Essequibo on official maps of Venezuela, calling it a ”calculated and provocative assertion of a claim” that Guyana has persistently rejected.
- “Rubio is pushing regime change–using same maximum pressure as last time,” Schock wrote to allies in a WhatsApp group chat last spring, one of a number of messages in which Schock attempted to convey his knowledge of executive branch workings.
Iran deal is in effect, White House says, as US officials reveal details of the agreement US officials cautioned that either side could walk away before a final deal, and Trump threatened to bomb Iran if they misbehaved. President Trump warned he could order new strikes if Iran’s leaders “don’t behave.” The U.S. and Iran signed the memorandum of understanding remotely, a White House official said.
When a collaborator on the Venezuela campaign asked in a group-chat exchange whether Schock needed documentation for “FARA purposes,” Schock did not directly respond. Despite engaging with Rodriguez and other interests in Venezuela, Schock did not file a notice of those activities under the Foreign Agent Registration Act, which covers public relations and lobbying campaigns. Schock invoiced Sargeant for both subscriptions to OnlyFans, the platform dominated by adult-video content, and a $7,000 campaign contribution — the legal maximum for a campaign year — to Rep. Andy Barr, who is running to replace fellow Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell in Kentucky. Over the five months beginning March 6, Schock tallied $185,000 in what he labeled business expenses, including flights, meals, Uber rides and stays at high-end hotels worldwide, including the Nikki Beach resort in Mallorca and Kimpton Shorebreak in southern California.
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Sargeant never agreed to pay, never paid, and never received any invoice, billing or reimbursement request for any alleged Schock expenses,” Kise wrote in a letter to POLITICO. The White House did not comment on Schock’s administration contacts. “Rubio is pushing regime change–using same maximum pressure as last time,” Schock wrote to allies in a WhatsApp group chat last spring, one of a number of messages in which Schock attempted to convey his knowledge of executive branch workings. Between ski trips to Mont Tremblant and Yellowstone, Schock worked with Papermaster to enlist a group of heavy-hitting bondholders who agreed to jointly finance a costly campaign to undermine the hawkish objectives of Rubio, now secretary of State, according to messages between them.
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Schock believed Loomer, who had since become skilled at administration personnel fights, could help tarnish them in Trump’s eyes as long as he armed her with the right intelligence. The firm did not act on behalf of or at the direction or control of any foreign persons in connection with this work and did not at any time have an obligation to register.” FARA registration was unnecessary, the firm wrote, because it “was retained by a U.S. client to assist U.S. entities with a domestic communications campaign. “Our engagement last spring with Mr. Sargeant, Mr. Schock, and Mr. Papermaster was a specific advisory campaign related to a communications and brand management program in support of President Trump and the U.S.’ energy policy in Venezuela,” Forward Global said in a statement provided to POLITICO. Schock helped the investor coalition hire Forward Global, a Paris-based firm which specialized in paying those with large social media followings to post and share political content, and began to coordinate Venezuela-related messaging with former officeholders, MAGA activists and online-famous influencers. He avoided registering, according to Papermaster, because he was intent on keeping the congressional member’s pin that stood as his most prized possession through its ability to grant continued access to the House floor.
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- Trump physically signed it Wednesday, a White House official said.
- The White House did not comment on Schock’s administration contacts.
- Over the five months beginning March 6, Schock tallied $185,000 in what he labeled business expenses, including flights, meals, Uber rides and stays at high-end hotels worldwide, including the Nikki Beach resort in Mallorca and Kimpton Shorebreak in southern California.
GEORGETOWN, Guyana (AP) — Guyana complained to Caribbean leaders on Tuesday after Venezuela’s acting President Delcy Rodríguez wore a controversial pin during official visits depicting the map of Guyana’s western region that Venezuela has long claimed as its own.
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First elected in 2012, at the tail end of the GOP tea party wave before Trump’s Make America Great Again movement burst onto the scene, Massie stood out from the start. Trump lashed out at the “lowlife” Massie as the congressman pushed the issue last year, prolonging a political headache for the White House. It was his work on the Epstein files, perhaps more than any of his repeated votes against spending bills and other party priorities, that elevated Massie’s profile. Massie rose from the House Republican backbench, charting his own path and showing again and again he was willing to buck his party and the president. Trump had reserved his fiercest attacks for Massie, a quirky conservative who had become among the most powerful rank-and-file Republicans in the House because of his willingness to vote as he pleased, rather than as the party demanded.
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Papermaster, who previously knew Schock socially but was unfamiliar with politics, ultimately turned on Schock due to what he described as a failure to uphold his end of the business relationship. Schock was driven to develop a strategy that would keep Trump’s relationship with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro intact so American oil business could resume operations undisturbed. But you wouldn’t have known that from the celebratory Instagram posts of ribbon cuttings in Los Angeles and New York City from the disgraced congressman who still cut the handsome figure of the boy next door. He returned from a trip to Caracas in early 2025 telling a confidant that Venezuela’s vice president had promised him a gold mine — an honest-to-god gold mine — if he could get U.S. sanctions lifted on the country. Naman is a copy editor at Times Now, with over three years experience in covering US News, politics, global affairs, sports, and other domains. Visit the global address formats page or South America address formats page for more information on all the other countries and territories we cover.
Trump physically signed it Wednesday, a White House official said. Georgia lawmakers surprisingly ditched plans to redraw the state’s congressional district maps following a recent U.S. Iran MOU was signed on Wednesday by Trump and Iran president, U.S. official says US officials have described the MoU as ‘performance-based’, with Iran benefitting as it complies. In 2017, rumors that someone had again struck gold there drew 3,000 miners to a small farming hamlet where they dug pits deep in the earth, looking for more.
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“He’s going to fight to the death to get this oil deal, this gold deal,” said Papermaster, who served as an aide-de-camp during Schock’s year-long quest to redefine Venezuela policy. The attempt to reinvent himself as a kind of global fixer after navigating years of federal prosecution led Schock into a cul de sac of MAGA influencers and oil interests looking to give shape to a president’s fluid ideas about foreign policy. An intermediary, Republican operative Caroline Wren, said Schock told her that he would not “engage in a coordinated hit piece.” Delcy Rodríguez, who was vice president of Venezuela at the time of Schock’s visit to Caracas and now serves as president, declined to comment through a government spokesperson.
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Papermaster argued to Schock that cartels and gangsters control the gold mines. To Papermaster, Schock appeared motivated by the twin goals of restoring his reputation and consummating the gold deal he said was pledged to him by Rodriguez. It read … resigned from Congress in March 2015 amid a scandal involving his use of public and campaign funds.
Countries and territories related to Venezuela
Ali, Guyana’s president, also railed against the inclusion of Essequibo on official maps of Venezuela, calling it a ”calculated and provocative assertion of a claim” that Guyana has persistently rejected. Caricom issued a statement later Tuesday acknowledging Ali’s letter and saying that “platforms and engagements should not be used, whether directly or indirectly, to advance or appear to legitimize claims that are the subject of ongoing judicial proceedings.” “Caricom’s principled support for Guyana must be reflected not only in declarations but in the context and conduct of official engagements,” he added, referring to the bloc. In his note, Ali said he fears Rodríguez’s use of the pin pin up login on official trips could be misinterpreted as her hosts’ “acquiescence or tolerance” of Venezuela’s territorial claims.
To keep his enterprise afloat in Venezuela, Sargeant needed to elevate those in the Trump administration who would push to repair relations rather than pursue regime change through punishing economic sanctions. As one of the country’s most prominent gay Republicans, Schock started trading ribbon cuttings for campaign stops. Schock had first befriended Grenell, who had been the only openly gay acting Cabinet-level official in U.S. history, amid California’s network of politically connected gay Republicans. The following year, in a letter posted to his tens of thousands of Instagram followers in March 2020, Schock came out as gay. I’ll always have a heart to serve, that doesn’t mean I have to run for office.
Break out your maracas because it’s time to learn how to address a letter in Venezuela, https://ganupedia.com/ and it’s going to be a carnival. The US has deployed nearly a dozen warships and about 12,000 sailors and Marines to the Caribbean region and off Venezuela’s coast as part of what it calls a counter-narcotics and maritime security operation. The Chinese leader also used the letter to condemn foreign interference in Venezuelan affairs, remarks widely seen as a response to Washington’s latest actions. Attendees laughed at the lighthearted moment during talks about Venezuela’s oil, global issues, and Greenland. At the time, Massie refused to allow the COVID-19 package to be approved without a formal roll call, forcing hundreds of lawmakers back to the Capitol.