Word: high-level
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...political situation continued to deteriorate, Democrats began blaming the House Republicans for delaying action and risking a widespread financial collapse. House Republicans were set to caucus at noon, and there were reports that minority whip Roy Blount would be joining the high-level negotiations with Senate leaders from both parties...
...more urgent question is whether U.S.-Venezuelan relations are at a breaking point. Chávez had been railing at Duddy in the media because of the ambassador's recent remarks suggesting that drug traffickers were finding it easier to use Venezuela as a transshipment point. But high-level sources inside Miraflores, the Caracas presidential palace, say Duddy is being expelled not for that controversy but because the Venezuelan government insists it has proof - which the sources say could be released on Friday - of Bush Administration involvement in an alleged coup plot...
Today, however, it's Duran whose legal skin that needs saving. Last December he and four other men, three Venezuelans and an Uruguayan, were charged in Miami with failing to register as foreign government agents. U.S. prosecutors say the men, at the behest of "high-level" Venezuelan government officials, cajoled and even threatened Antonini to keep mum about the real purpose of all that cash: an illegal contribution from Venezuela to the presidential campaign of then Argentine Senator and First Lady Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, a Chavez ally. One of the men, Moises Maionica, pleaded guilty in January...
...case, Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Mulvihill, has said in hearings that conversations recorded by an FBI wire that Antonini wore prove the suitcase money "was meant for the campaign of Cristina [Fernandez]." And according to court documents filed this summer, Kauffman is expected to testify they were told by high-level Venezuelan officials that Chavez was personally involved in the alleged suitcase affair and its aftermath...
Court documents allege Maionica confided he was "brought into the conspiracy by a high-level official of DISIP." They say Kauffman and Duran - who own ritzy Florida homes, enjoy racing Ferraris and are part of what Venezuelans call the revolution's "Boli-bourgeoisie" - issued thinly veiled threats. They warned that "foreign government authorities would pursue Antonini" if he talked, and that it was in his children's best interest that he have "no problems" with Venezuela. At one cloak-and-dagger gathering, Canchica, using the name "Christian," allegedly told Antonini that PDVSA (the Venezuelan oil corporation) and the Chavez government...