That Was Their Fault

Responding to: Taking Venezuela’s Oil: Nullifying the Claims of American Companies — Andrew C. McCarthy · 2026-09-06

What the Piece Argues

A former federal prosecutor argues that the Trump administration’s seizure and control of Venezuela’s oil sector exceeds every legal precedent the administration has invoked to justify it. The Noriega precedent — extracting a foreign leader under felony indictment — authorized removing Maduro, the piece contends, but does not authorize invading a country to seize its assets; drug trafficking is a prosecutable crime, not an act of war, and Congress has authorized no military force for this purpose. The administration then used an executive order, under the guise of a national emergency, to immunize the proceeds of Venezuelan oil sales from the legal claims of American oil companies that had already won court judgments against Venezuela for Chávez-era expropriations. The piece documents that sales are being managed by foreign commodity traders with political ties to the president, proceeds were routed through a bank in Qatar specifically to insulate them from American creditors and courts, and the arrangement has operated with essentially zero congressional oversight or transparency.

Receipts

The single talking point the piece advances is that the only real “national emergency” is that American oil companies might recover their losses from Chávez’s expropriation. The framing invites a procedural debate; what’s actually happening is a laundering operation for the seizure of another country’s oil.

• The framing wants you to see a separation-of-powers puzzle. What’s really going on: Executive Order 14373 was issued specifically to stop ConocoPhillips and other American claimants from collecting on judgments they already won.
• The framing wants you to weigh in on IEEPA and Zivotofsky. What’s really going on: $13 billion of Venezuelan oil has already moved through the arrangement, per the Financial Times.
• The framing wants you to debate Dames & Moore. What’s really going on: Trump reportedly told ConocoPhillips CEO Ryan Lance that the administration “is not going to look at what people lost in the past, because that was their fault.”
• The framing wants you to focus on Congress’s silence. What’s really going on: the proceeds sit in a bank account in Qatar — opened, by Secretary Rubio’s own Senate testimony, to keep them out of reach of American creditors and federal courts — and are managed by Vitol (a senior trader of which donated $6 million to Trump’s 2024 campaign) and Trafigura, neither of which is publicly traded or bound by federal securities disclosure.

Anchor citation: Venezuela has ranked first in proved oil reserves in the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s international series for decades; that ranking, not a precise barrel count, is what makes the operation worth the legal contortion.

The Response Ladder

Polite Reframe

When to use: persuadable moderates who value the rule of law, American business, and limited government; good-faith family members who care about property rights and constitutional process.

You believe in the rule of law. You believe American companies that win court judgments should be able to collect them. You believe the president should not be able to seize a foreign nation’s oil reserves, route the proceeds through political donors and foreign bank accounts, and use an executive order to block the very companies the legal system was designed to protect — all without asking Congress for a dime of authorization.

That is not a left-wing position. That is the position of anyone who believes the Constitution means what it says. The administration has moved $13 billion in Venezuelan oil through foreign commodity traders, held the proceeds in a Qatari bank specifically to insulate them from American courts, and told the American companies that fought for years to recover what Chávez stole from them that their claims are now worthless. When asked by Congress for an accounting, the administration said nothing.

Meekness before the law is not weakness. It is the discipline that makes the law worth having. If we let this go because the man doing it is on our side, then the law was never the thing we were actually defending.

Mockery and Ridicule

When to use: bystanders in a public exchange who can see the hypocrisy; readers who already suspect the deal stinks but haven’t seen the receipts laid out.

The “America First” administration just routed $13 billion in Venezuelan oil through a Swiss commodity trader whose senior trader donated $6 million to the president’s 2024 campaign, parked the proceeds in a bank in Qatar — specifically to dodge American courts — and when Congress asked where the money went, received a silence so complete you could hear the offshore account earning interest.

The “law and order” president nullified actual American court judgments — won by actual American companies in actual American courts — through an executive order declaring that the national emergency is the possibility that American companies might recover what they are owed. The “tough on crime” White House told ConocoPhillips’s CEO that it was not going to look at past losses because “that was their fault.” American companies. American courts. American judgments. American verdict. President says: doesn’t count. And then, to make sure no American court could enforce those judgments, the money was moved to Qatar.

A former federal prosecutor has laid the receipts out plainly, and the gymnastics required to call this legal could medal in the Olympics. The Noriega precedent authorized extracting an indicted drug lord. It did not authorize the president to invade a country, seize its oil, route the proceeds through political donors, and tell the American companies that got robbed to take a hike. But sure. Law and order. America First. Just not those Americans. And not their laws. And not their first.

Nuclear Satire

When to use: readers who already know this is rotten and want the full scope of the indictment laid bare with receipts, grotesque comparisons, and absolute villainization of the scheme.

The president took a precedent that authorized extracting a drug trafficker and turned it into a license to steal a nation’s oil. He invaded Venezuela, removed the head of state, cut a deal with the Marxist regime still running the country — keep us in power, and we will give you control of the reserves — hired foreign commodity traders with political ties to manage the sales, parked the proceeds in a Qatari bank to dodge American courts, and then issued an executive order declaring that the national emergency is the possibility that American companies might actually collect the court judgments they already won. He told the CEO of ConocoPhillips that his company’s losses were his own fault. He left Congress out of the entire arrangement and turned a deaf ear to requests for an audit. $13 billion in oil moved through the machine. Roughly $300 million reached earthquake relief — and that, the administration says, was a coincidence.

This is not a policy dispute. This is a racket with a national-emergency declaration stapled to it. It has the architecture of an organized-crime operation routed through a foreign bank: take the asset, hire the connected middleman, route the money offshore, immunize it from the courts, and when the victims ask where their money is, tell them to go pound sand. And when a constitutional scholar — from the house organ of the movement that spent forty years telling us about property rights and the rule of law and executive overreach — concludes openly that the arrangement has “no foundation in federal law,” that is not a liberal talking point. That is the fox’s own denmate saying the fox is raiding the henhouse.

The prophet Amos told the rulers of Israel: “I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” Jeremiah told them: “They have treated the wound of my people as if it were not serious, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace.” The “national emergency” here is not drugs, not terrorism, not a foreign threat to the republic. The national emergency is that American companies with valid court judgments might actually collect what they are owed. A president who weaponizes an emergency declaration to protect the proceeds of a $13 billion seizure from the creditors who won their day in court is not upholding the law. He is the case the law was written for. Every dollar routed through Qatar, every judgment nullified by executive fiat, every lie told to Congress when it asked where the money went — this is what Amos was talking about. Profits built on stolen oil do not last. Neither do the men who built them.

Profane Scorched-Earth

When to use: readers who have hit their limit on euphemism and need every word unfiltered — every receipt lands, every name is named, every dollar is tracked, and no one gets to hide behind “executive authority” or “national security” or “it’s complicated.”

Fuck the Noriega precedent. Fuck “law and order.” Fuck “America First.” The president of the United States invaded a country, seized $13 billion in oil, routed it through foreign commodity traders — one of whose senior figures gave his campaign $6 million — parked the proceeds in a bank in Qatar specifically to dodge American courts, issued an executive order declaring that the national emergency is the possibility that American companies might recover what they are owed, told ConocoPhillips’s CEO that his company’s losses were his own fault, cut the Marxist regime back in on a deal to keep them in power, left Congress completely out of the loop, and when asked for an audit, said nothing. Not a goddamn thing.

And the men who spent their entire careers telling us about property rights and executive overreach and the rule of law — the “conservative legal movement,” the Federalist Society crowd, the “constitutional” scholars — where the fuck are they? A former federal prosecutor lays it out plainly: no foundation in federal law. None. The arrangement is constructed, in his words, “with an eye toward denying naysayers standing to sue over the illegality.” They built a $13 billion racket and structured it so no American court could touch it. And these motherfuckers have the audacity to call themselves the party of law and order?

Matthew 25:41: “Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” Verse 42: “For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.” They will answer — every last one of them. The men who designed the scheme. The men who signed the executive order. The foreign traders who moved the money. The Qatar bank that held it. The Congressional majority that looked the other way. Every dollar, every judgment, every lie. They built this thing in the light of day and told us it was legal. It is not legal. It is not complicated. It is theft at a scale that would make a third-world dictator blush — and they are doing it to American companies, in American courts, with American money, and calling it national security. Every. Damn. Receipt. Is. Right. There.