Tag: Miami

Soon after Susie Wiles ran Donald Trump’s successful 2016 presidential campaign in Florida, she moved to Washington to join Brian Ballard’s lobbying firm, which was mainly known for its political clout and connections to Florida’s GOP governors.

With her ties to Trump, Wiles brought an instant cachet to Ballard Partners. Among the firm’s new stable of D.C. clients was an improbable, though wealthy, Venezuelan businessman, Raul Gorrin, who was close to President Nicolás Maduro and his predecessor, Hugo Chavez, the leader of Venezuela’s socialist revolution.

Gorrin, a lawyer who owned a TV station in Caracas, retained Ballard’s firm in June 2017 to help him expand Globovision as a Spanish-speaking television affiliate in the United States — a challenge given that the city of Miami had declared him persona non grata because of his ties to Maduro. The Federal Communications Commission also has strict limits on foreign ownership of U.S. TV and radio stations.

Gorrin was also hoping to gain access to the new Trump administration, which was threatening economic sanctions against the Maduro regime and Venezuela’s oil industry.

Wiles, whom Trump picked as his White House chief of staff after he won a second presidential term in 2024, may soon have to face questions about her and her former lobbying firm’s relationship with Gorrin. An upcoming federal trial in Miami focuses on criminal charges against former Miami-Dade Republican Congressman David Rivera and political consultant Esther Nuhfer, who are accused of secretly lobbying for the Venezuelan government in 2017 and 2018. Wiles could not be reached for comment this week.

The defense team’s effort to seek the testimony of Wiles, as well as Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Florida’s former U.S. senator, has heightened the stakes of the high-profile case, which is headed for trial a few months after Trump sent the U.S. military to Venezuela in early January to seize Maduro. He and his wife, Cilia Flores, are being held at a federal lockup on drug-trafficking charges in New York.

Lawyers for Rivera and Nuhfer are seeking Wiles’ testimony at the trial starting in mid-March. Rivera and Nuhfer are accused of being unregistered foreign agents for the Venezuelan government. They’re also accused of trying to “normalize” relations between the Maduro regime and the United States while Rivera’s consulting firm landed a head-turning $50-million lobbying contract with the U.S. subsidiary of Venezuela’s state-owned oil company.

The two defendants have strongly denied the allegations, and hope to undercut the government’s case by showing they were not doing Maduro’s bidding but rather were attempting to get him removed from power. They also want to show that Wiles’ former lobbying firm was attempting to lobby Trump, on behalf of Gorrin, to bring about a regime change in Venezuela.

The lead federal prosecutor, Harold Schimkat, said at a Miami federal court hearing last week that the government will try to quash Wiles’ subpoena, saying: “We don’t see her connection to this case at all.”

But defense attorneys for Rivera and Nuhfer wrote a letter to the White House seeking Wiles as a witness, saying they want to question the former Ballard lobbyist about her “extensive communications” regarding the firm’s $50,000-a-month representation of Gorrin in 2017 and 2018.

The lawyers plan to question her and other Ballard lobbyists about their work to expand Gorrin’s Venezuelan TV station onto AT&T and Comcast broadcast platforms in the United States. But they also want to ask her about what they view as the Ballard firm’s discreet effort to help Gorrin gain access to Trump and other high-ranking officials to broker a regime change in Venezuela — a critical message that they say would help Rivera and Nuhfer’s defense.

Key letter written by Wiles’ former lobbying firm

The lawyers plan to zero in on a Ballard-drafted letter obtained by the Miami Herald that underscored Gorrin’s goal to ease out Maduro as Venezuela’s president and replace him with an opposition leader aligned with the U.S. government. Their bold bid to subpoena Wiles also parallels their effort to seek similar testimony from Rubio, who as Florida’s senator privately met with Rivera, Nuhfer and Gorrin at a hotel in Washington in 2017.

“I happen to know that my government wants a way out, a way to save their skins and fortunes,” says the June 24, 2017, draft letter, which Gorrin had hoped to deliver to Trump at a presidential victory event in Washington four days later. “The opposition, on the other hand, wants a way in but is not unified in how to achieve its goals.

“The domestic violence and poverty and failure of our economic infrastructure is killing my beautiful country,” the letter, signed by Gorrin, goes on to say. “Please tell me who I can work with in your administration to bring about the change we desperately need.”

Gorrin had wanted to deliver the letter to the president at a Trump victory event at the Trump International Hotel on June 28, 2017, but was unable to do so because of restrictions imposed by the Secret Service. While he attended the event, Gorrin never met Trump.

Gorrin meets with Pence in Doral

Later that year, el Nuevo Herald reported that Gorrin met then-Vice President Mike Pence at an event in Doral where he gave a speech to Venezuelan supporters. Brian Ballard set up the meeting between Gorrin and Pence after his lobbying firm retained Gorrin as a client in June 2017, according to lawyers for Rivera and Nuhfer.

At the time, Ballard Partners denied any knowledge of Gorrín’s efforts to influence the Trump administration’s approach to Venezuela or shape a transition of power, el Nuevo Herald reported.

“We’re trying to serve Globovision’s needs in U.S. markets and in various other regulatory things that come up,” Brian Ballard, the firm’s founder and a former lobbyist for Trump’s Florida business dealings, said back then.

Ballard, who authorized taking on Gorrin as a client, is expected to be called as a witness at the trial of Rivera and Nuhfer. He declined an interview request from the Herald.

In a statement issued this week by his lobbying firm’s lawyer, Curt Miner, Brian Ballard stressed that it “had no involvement in Mr. Rivera’s consulting contract with PDVSA,” Venezuela’s national oil company. The state-owned company’s U.S. subsidiary, PDV USA, hired Rivera’s consulting company in March 2017.

“Ballard Partners’ work for Globovision involved Globovision’s efforts to expand its TV network into the U.S. market,” Ballard said in the statement to the Herald. “We fully complied with all legal and regulatory requirements in our work for Globovision. Ballard Partners, if needed, stands ready to be a witness at the trial.”

Technically, Ballard Partners registered as a lobbyist for Gorrin’s company, Globovision, not the businessman himself. But the Washington lobbying firm did not have to register with the government as a foreign agent because of an exemption for representing a nonpolitical, commercial client.

Trump’s presidency has been good for Ballard’s business. The Tallahassee-based firm reported $88.3 million in federal lobbying revenue in 2025. Ballard, which quadrupled its revenue over 2024 and now ranks as the top lobbying firm in Washington, also recently announced an expansion of its consulting services focusing on Venezuela, Latin America, Mexico, Canada and Greenland — in the aftermath of Maduro’s ouster as president.

Letter implores Trump to help broker change in Venezuela

Ballard’s statement to the Herald, however, did not address his lobbying firm’s draft letter for Gorrin. The letter begins with Gorrin complimenting Trump about his “patriotism” and agenda “to make America great again,” saying he has “no doubt” that the president “will succeed.”

“I too am a businessman from Venezuela and love my country,” the letter said. “I want for my country exactly what you are doing for America. I want to make Venezuela great again. We need change and dialogue and peace and progress and democracy.”

“I believe in my heart and soul that if you could direct me to someone in your administration to work with, I will devote every waking minute to a successful resolution of the crisis in Venezuela,” the letter continued. “Like you, I am a businessman who also understands how to negotiate through complicated problems.”

The draft letter for Gorrin was a project handled by another partner in Ballard’s lobbying firm, Sylvester Lukis, according to emails between Lukis and others, including a Miami businessman, Hugo Perera, who also communicated with Gorrin about the letter.

It is unclear if Wiles knew about the draft letter. Other emails show that she was focused on promoting Gorrin’s TV station, Globovision, and corresponded by email with one of the network’s executives as well as Gorrin, Lukis, Ballard, Perera and others, records show.

Fisher Island neighbors

In 2017, Nuhfer introduced Rivera to Perera, who then put them together with Gorrin, who was Perera’s neighbor on exclusive Fisher Island. In turn, Gorrin helped Rivera land his $50-million contract with Venezuela’s oil subsidiary, PDV USA, known as Citgo, which is based in Houston.

Court records show that PDV USA paid Rivera $20 million over a few months in 2017 for “international strategic consulting services,” but then cut him off, saying in a 2020 lawsuit that he did not perform much work to help the company expand its refining business in the United States.

For making the introductions to Gorrin, Rivera paid Perera about $5 million, but has since had a falling out with him. Perera was not charged in the government’s case against Rivera and Nuhfer. Instead, he is cooperating as a witness against them, which has led to Rivera suing him.

Separately, as part of his PDV USA contract, Rivera also paid about $4 million each to Nuhfer and Gorrin. During this same period in 2017, Nuhfer also had a separate consulting contract with Gorrin to push the expansion of his TV station, Globovision, into the U.S. market. Gorrin paid $3.75 million to Nuhfer, Rivera and Perera, according to court records.

This was separate from the $50,000-a-month retainer Globovision had with Ballard Partners to lobby on its behalf.

“The actual reason for the payment, as Ms. Wiles’ similar and concurrent Globovision efforts can corroborate, was likewise to expand Globovision onto ATT and Comcast broadcast platforms and had nothing to do whatever with the normalization of relations for the Venezuelan government of President Maduro,” according to a Dec. 22, 2025, letter sent by lawyers for Rivera and Nuhfer to the White House seeking Wiles’ testimony at their trial.

However, according to their indictment, Rivera and Nuhfer arranged meetings with an unidentified U.S. senator in Washington — Rubio —on two occasions at a private residence and a hotel in the nation’s capital to discuss the U.S.-Venezuelan normalization plan in 2017.

Rivera told Rubio at the residence that Gorrin had persuaded Maduro to accept a deal whereby he would hold free and fair elections, the indictment says. Then, Rivera, Nuhfer and Gorrin met with Rubio at the hotel, with a Venezuelan opposition leader participating by phone, to discuss Venezuela’s issues.

But Gorrin ultimately informed Rivera and Nuhfer that Maduro “refused to agree to hold free and fair elections in Venezuela in exchange for reconciliation with the United States,” according to the indictment.

In a statement, Rivera, who served as a Miami-Dade congressman for one term from 2011 to 2013, has defended his actions by saying he was really working for the U.S. subsidiary of Venezuela’s state-owned oil company — not directly as a consultant for the Venezuelan government in the United States — and therefore he didn’t need to register as a foreign agent.

Rivera has also said that his work for PDVSA’s subsidiary in the United States had nothing to do with his separate lobbying efforts that aimed to remove Maduro from power and replace him with an opposition leader.

“Every leader of the Venezuelan opposition I worked with in 2017 — Julio Borges, Lilian Tintori, Henry Ramos Allup — was all done through Raul Gorrin,” Rivera told the Miami Herald. “I met them all through Gorrin.

“When Brian Ballard asked me if Gorrin would help the White House get opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez of prison, Gorrin immediately said yes and helped get Lopez released days later,” Rivera said.

Ballard did not address this or other related matters with the Herald.

Lopez was released from a Venezuelan military prison to house arrest in July 2017, after serving over three years of a nearly 14-year sentence for leading anti-government protests against Maduro. Lopez fled to Spain in 2020.

Ultimately, Gorrin’s efforts on multiple lobbying fronts failed to pan out in the United States. Instead, the first Trump administration imposed sanctions on the Maduro government, Venezuela’s oil industry, government officials and others, including Gorrin.

Gorrin charged in Miami federal court

Gorrin, who is still in Venezuela, was charged in 2018 and again in 2024 with foreign corruption and money laundering in Miami federal court. Ballard stopped representing Gorrin in August 2018, citing a Miami Herald story that had revealed Gorrin was under criminal investigation.

In late 2024, Rivera was charged separately in Washington, with being an unregistered agent for Gorrin. He was accused of trying to lobby a Trump administration official between 2019 and 2020 on behalf of the Venezuelan businessman, whom federal authorities say paid the former congressman $5.5 million while trying to get himself removed from the government’s sanctions list.

Gorrin, who is considered a fugitive by federal prosecutors, provided the Herald with a brief statement through Rivera.

“Susie Wiles was always very professional and very capable,” Gorrin said. “President Trump is fortunate to have her by his side.”