As Venezuela Starves, Citgo Gave $500,000 to Trump Inauguration



WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Citgo, the U.S. subsidiary of Venezuela's state owned oil company Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA), donated half-a-million dollars for President Donald J. Trump's Inauguration, newly released U.S. Federal Election Committee filings show.

According to the FEC filing, Citgo’s $500,000 contribution came on December 22 -- one day after the Latin American Herald Tribune broke the story that Venezuela had mortgaged 49.9% of Citgo to Russia's Rosneft for $1.5 billion.

LAHT editor Russ Dallen testified before Congress last month on the transaction, and last week U.S. Senate leaders joined House leaders in calling for a U.S. government Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS) review of Venezuela's Citgo deal with Russia's Rosneft.

Rosneft is on the U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned company list as a result of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and seizure of Crimea. U.S. companies are forbidden from doing business with Rosneft as a result. Rosneft head Igor Sechin, a long-time associate and former aide to Russia President Vladimir Putin, is also on the sanction list.

Venezuela has also been declared a National Security threat by the President for the last three years in a row.

Aside from the fact that Venezuela is reeling from shortages of everything from food to medicine, the half-a-million dollar donation appears to be unusual for Citgo, which didn’t contribute to U.S. presidential inaugurations in 2005, 2009 or 2013.

According to the 510 page filing (see below), Citgo's contribution was among the largest from fossil-fuel companies -- which in all donated almost $3.6 million to the inaugural fund.




Trump’s inaugural committee also received support from John B. Hess, CEO of Hess Corp., who contributed $1 million. Chevron contributed $525,000. Equaling the contribution from Citgo, ExxonMobil and British Petroleum (BP) each gave $500,000. . Anadarko gave $100,000, as did Valero.

For many donors, the inaugural committee represented the last or only chance to get on the Trump bandwagon before he took the oath of office. Corporations, barred by federal law from donating to campaigns, can underwrite the costs of inaugural festivities.

Federal law allows inaugural committees to largely determine their own rules about who can contribute and how much. For his first inauguration, Obama limited donations to $50,000, and didn’t accept them from corporations or lobbyists. For his second, he raised the limit to $1 million and allowed corporate contributions. Trump’s team set no limit on the amounts individuals and corporations could give.

While the committee’s report to the FEC discloses its donors, the first glimpse into its spending doesn’t have to be shared until the spring of 2018, at the earliest, when the committee, a nonprofit, files with the Internal Revenue Service.

Four years ago, Obama raised $43.7 million for his scaled-down second inauguration, which cost $40.3 million. At his first inauguration, Obama raised more than $53 million, a record at the time.

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