Rubio Testifies Against Ally Accused as Secret Agent

Two Florida politicians who once shared a house in Tallahassee just shared something else: a federal courtroom. Secretary of State Marco Rubio spent hours on Tuesday testifying against his ex-roommate and longtime friend David Rivera, a former congressman now on trial in Miami on charges that he secretly worked for Venezuela's government, reports the Washington Post. Prosecutors say Rivera took a $50 million, three-month contract tied to Venezuela's state oil company to push the Trump administration to ease pressure on President Nicolas Maduro. Rivera has pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy, failing to register as a foreign agent, money laundering, and tax offenses.

On the stand in South Florida, Rubio described a 2017 meeting for which Rivera urgently flew to DC, with what Rubio said was a plan to persuade Maduro to step aside and hold elections. Rubio said he was skeptical but saw "a 1% chance" it might advance democracy and later delivered a Senate speech on Venezuela that drew on Rivera's talking points. Rubio told jurors he would've thought twice had he known Rivera's deal involved "an entity controlled by the Venezuelan government," saying that such a hypothetical revelation would've been "shocking" to him. In fact, Rubio described Rivera as a "vociferous anti-communist voice," including as "one of the leading voices against the Castro regime" in Cuba, per Politico.

The appearance marked the first time in more than 40 years that a sitting Cabinet secretary has testified in a criminal trial—a move the AP calls "highly unusual." Both sides leaned into Rubio's star power, per the Post: Prosecutors argued Rivera was selling access to a senator he'd helped elevate from young state lawmaker to national figure. The defense countered that Rivera's long association with Rubio—portrayed as an uncompromising Maduro critic—proves he would never secretly work for the Venezuelan leader, suggesting that any political discussions were aimed at aiding opposition forces, not the regime. The case also revisited the men's intertwined past, down to Rubio's memoir acknowledgments and old photos of the pair.