How a top State Dept. official "went rogue" over Machado's Venezuela plans

According to Axios, a top U.S. diplomat is accused of quietly working against his own administration's Venezuela policy. Deputy Secretary of State Chris Landau — the number two at the department under Marco Rubio — allegedly told officials from the Netherlands and Panama that the United States backed exiled opposition leader Maria Corina Machado's push to return home, even though the official line was to keep her out. Machado, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate living in the U.S. without a valid passport, wanted to return after a late-June earthquake devastated Venezuela. Seven senior officials told Axios that Landau's alleged freelancing sparked two days of international confusion, with the Dutch first approving and then reversing her travel while she was in the air. Landau denies misrepresenting the policy, saying he was misunderstood. A State Department spokesperson dismissed the reports, insisting the department stands, in his words, in lockstep behind President Trump and Rubio.

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