It’s unclear whether prosecutors had implicated Rodríguez in any crimes or whether investigators were moving toward an indictment. A Justice Department spokesperson said in an email “there was never an investigation into her to shut down.”
But DEA records obtained by The Associated Press earlier this year show she consistently surfaced on the radar of federal law enforcement dating to at least 2018, though she has never been criminally charged in the U.S. like several other senior Venezuelan officials.
The directive to pause scrutiny into Rodríguez was meant to avoid upsetting the administration’s efforts to stabilize Venezuela after the capture of her predecessor, Nicolás Maduro, among other reasons, the official said. It was not clear whether the White House, which deferred comment to the Justice Department, was involved in the decision.
THE OCCUPIED TERRITORIES Bill will be brought before cabinet for government approval later, with the aim of enacting it before the Dáil summer recess.
Israel has built more than 25 kilometers of earthen barriers inside Gaza since the “ceasefire,” according to an analysis by Forensic Architecture—physically dividing Gaza along the line of Israeli control and further corralling Palestinians into less than half of the enclave.
Forces belonging to Libyan military leader Khalifa Haftar have arrested a number of members of a Gaza aid convoy in the city of Sirte.
The Trump administration has mass-deleted information about prosecutions tied to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, including cases of defendants who assaulted police officers. The removals mark the latest phase of President Trump's effort to rewrite the history of the violent riot.
