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New in SpyWeek: Overt-Covert Venezuela Op, KGB Files on JFK, Bolton Busted, Nobel Spy?

Also: More Chinese Subversion, Russians rolled up, Giuliani in the Balkans, Orban intrigue

Jeff Stein's avatar
Jeff Stein
Oct 18, 2025
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Overt-Covert: President Trump confirmed this week that he had “authorized” covert actions to destabilize Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro’s socialist dictatorship because “they have emptied their prisons into the United States of America…And..we have a lot of drugs coming in from Venezuela…”—claims experts call baseless, as well as phony foundations for illegal military attacks in the Caribbean. (Colombia and Mexico are the major culprits.) Then, in a kind of off-hand remark to reporters in the Oval Office on Friday, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy looking on, Trump said Maduro had offered concessions to avoid an armed conflict “because he doesn’t want to fuck around with the United States,” which has assembled an armada nearby.

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