A Miami federal jury convicted former Florida Rep. David Rivera on Friday on all counts tied to a secret multimillion-dollar lobbying campaign carried out on behalf of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro's government, a scheme prosecutors say netted Rivera and his associate roughly $20 million while they worked to soften the Trump administration's stance toward Caracas without ever disclosing whom they served.
Rivera, a Republican who represented South Florida's 25th Congressional District, and his consultant Esther Nuhfer were found guilty of violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act and conspiracy to commit money laundering. District Judge Melissa Damian ordered Rivera taken into custody immediately after the verdict, citing flight risk, access to sizable funds, and the severity of the charges. He faces additional federal charges in Washington, D.C., in a related foreign lobbying case.
The conviction lands at a moment when foreign influence in American politics is drawing scrutiny across the ideological spectrum, from recent accusations involving media figures to long-running concerns about unregistered lobbying by hostile governments. Rivera's case is a blunt reminder that the threat is bipartisan and that the law applies regardless of party affiliation.
Prosecutors presented evidence over the course of what Just the News described as a seven-week trial that Venezuela's state-run oil company hired Rivera's consulting firm in 2017 and 2018 to ease tensions between Washington and Caracas and push for an end to U.S. sanctions on the South American country.
The indictment, unsealed in 2024, alleged that then-Venezuelan Foreign Minister Delcy Rodríguez personally recruited Rivera and Nuhfer for the job. The contract called for five $5 million payments and one $25 million payment, a total of $50 million. The company terminated the deal before all payments were made, but prosecutors said the pair still collected roughly $20 million.
Rather than register under FARA, the 1938 law designed to prevent covert foreign influence in American politics, Rivera and Nuhfer allegedly concealed the arrangement while lobbying U.S. lawmakers and members of the first Trump administration. Prosecutors said Rivera leveraged his Republican connections, including personal ties to now-Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Texas Rep. Pete Sessions, to press for sanctions relief.
Both Rubio and Sessions testified during the trial that they were unaware of the consulting contract with PDV USA, the U.S. affiliate of Venezuela's state oil company. A top Washington lobbyist offered similar testimony.
Prosecutor Roger Cruz told jurors during closing arguments that the defendants' motives were straightforward. As Newsmax reported, Cruz said:
"As long as the money kept coming in, they didn't care from where."
Cruz also referenced the coded language Rivera and others used to discuss payments from Caracas. "It was all about La Luz," he said, referring to the Spanish word for light. Prosecutors pointed to private chat messages in which Nuhfer drafted FARA disclosure letters, letters that were never filed, as evidence the pair understood the legal requirements and chose to ignore them.
The defense maintained that the multimillion-dollar contract applied only to commercial work aimed at bringing ExxonMobil back to Venezuela, and that Rivera and Nuhfer acted in good faith. The jury rejected that argument on every count.
After the verdict, U.S. Attorney Jason A. Reding Quiñones framed the case in stark terms, as reported by the Associated Press:
"These convictions expose a simple truth: the defendants sold access and influence to a hostile foreign regime for money."
Rivera's conviction did not arrive in a vacuum. The Hill reported that the former lawmaker had previously faced several state and federal investigations into improper campaign dealings. He was arrested in 2022, and the indictment in the Venezuela case was unsealed two years later.
On Thursday, the day before the guilty verdict, Judge Damian denied Rivera's request to modify the terms of his bond so he could travel to Miami for what he described as "personal family related reasons." Damian cited his history and the severity of the charges. Prosecutors had argued he posed a flight risk due to "the seriousness of the charges and his significant financial resources."
The case also carries broader implications for how Washington polices foreign influence. FARA enforcement was historically lax, with the statute treated for decades as a sleepy registration requirement rather than a serious criminal statute. That has changed in recent years, and Rivera's prosecution fits a pattern of stepped-up enforcement, a pattern that has generated its own controversies, including ongoing ethics questions involving sitting members of Congress.
One detail that makes this case especially damaging for Rivera: the Trump administration he was secretly lobbying had already moved decisively against the Maduro regime. President Trump sanctioned Maduro's government within his first six months in office. Rivera was, by prosecutors' account, working to reverse a policy his own party's president had enacted, and doing so at the direction of a hostile foreign government, for cash.
The administration did not loosen restrictions on Venezuela during the period in question. Whatever Rivera and Nuhfer were selling, the buyers did not get what they paid for. But the scheme itself, a former Republican congressman secretly acting as an agent of Maduro's authoritarian government while trading on friendships with figures like Rubio, represents a serious breach of the public trust.
Foreign policy toward Latin American adversaries remains a live issue on Capitol Hill, as recent Senate votes on Cuba policy have shown. The Rivera verdict is a reminder that the threat of foreign manipulation does not always arrive through the opposition party. Sometimes it walks through the door wearing a lapel pin.
Rivera now faces sentencing in Miami and additional federal charges in Washington, D.C. The specific penalties he could receive were not detailed in available court filings, but FARA violations and money laundering conspiracy charges carry significant prison time. Nuhfer, convicted alongside him, awaits her own sentencing.
The case also raises questions about the broader network. Who else knew? Were other officials approached? And how did roughly $20 million in payments from a Venezuelan state entity flow into the United States without triggering earlier intervention? Those questions remain open, and the current administration's foreign policy apparatus will have to reckon with the fact that a former congressman exploited personal relationships at the highest levels of government to serve a hostile regime's interests.
Conservatives who believe in clean government, lawful conduct, and accountability should not flinch from this verdict. Rivera betrayed the trust of his constituents, his colleagues, and his country, and a jury of his peers said so unanimously. The law that caught him exists for exactly this reason. It should be enforced without regard to party, and in this case, it was.