More on the Venezuelan coup of April 2002

Recently I posted on a report from attorney Eva Golinger about newly discovered CIA documents that show the U.S. knew of the plans to overthrow Venezuela's president Hugo Chávez in April of 2002 some weeks before the event, even though the State Department had denied any knowledge of it immediately after the coup. Now that the documents are out, we have to find a new story. Not to worry. Denial is our friend.

New York Newsday staff writers Letta Tayler and Bart Jones report that accelerating a running war of words, US State Department officials and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez gave contradictory accounts this week on whether the former warned the latter of a coup plot in the days before a 2002 putsch that briefly ousted the leftist leader.

On Tuesday, a ranking US State Department official told Newsday that a US official had informed Chavez that there were "rumors" of a coup plot against him eight days before his overthrow in April 2002 ... Chavez "pooh-poohed" the warning, the official said.

But Wednesday night in Venezuela, Chavez denied he had been warned ... and yesterday he claimed the United States had "directed" the coup. The State Department stood by its account yesterday and repeated previous statements that it had no involvement in the coup.

[...]

Asked last week about the CIA documents ... which were obtained by Long Island-based attorney Eva Golinger ... US officials initially said only that they'd done nothing wrong and noted that a State Department inspector general's report in July 2002 exonerated the US government.

But, after Venezuelan officials criticized Washington for allegedly failing to alert them to the conspiracy, a ranking State Department official told Newsday that a US official had warned the democratically-elected Chavez on April 3, 2002, saying, "there are all these rumors going around of coup plotting against you." He noted that the inspector general's report also says US officials warned Chavez of possible coup plots ... though it doesn't say when or in what detail.

The State Department official said Chavez was not given specifics in the face-to-face meeting, even though the CIA documents show the US government had gotten details....

  VHeadline article

First we say we didn't have any knowledge of a coup. Then when that proves a lie, we say we knew, and we duly reported it. Reminds me of another attorney story.

When I was working for some lawyers in San Francisco, one of the partners talked about the case he was handling which involved a vicious dog attack. According to the boss, defendant's attorney's responsive plea stated that, 1) defendant didn't own a dog; 2) if defendant owned a dog, the dog was not dangerous; and 3) if the dog were dangerous, defendant had no prior knowledge of it.