False Conspiracies Tie Maduro’s Capture to 2020 Election Claims, Pushed by Trump and MAGA Influencers
Election deniers and MAGA influencers insist the U.S. capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has no connection to oil interests or drug trafficking allegations. Instead, they are backing a baseless narrative that the operation is entirely tied to their long-debunked claim that the Venezuelan government helped rig the 2020 U.S. presidential election in favor of former President Joe Biden.
Current U.S. President Donald Trump and his administration have actively amplified these false conspiracy theories.
In the days following Maduro’s January 3 arrest, Trump shared a flurry of posts on his Truth Social platform focused on 2020 election fraud, including multiple entries referencing Dominion Voting Systems. Other prominent MAGA influencers turned their focus to Smartmatic, a second election technology company.
Both Dominion and Smartmatic, which produce voting machines and their operating software, became central targets of disinformation campaigns immediately after the 2020 election. Election deniers falsely claimed the firms were core to a supposed plot to elect Biden, and these claims have been repeatedly disproven in court: in 2023, Fox News agreed to pay Dominion nearly $800 million to settle a defamation lawsuit over the network’s false claims about the company’s voting equipment.
Across social media, however, these old conspiracy theories about the voting companies have been resurrected. Election deniers and MAGA loyalists now claim the Venezuelan government conspired with Smartmatic to steal the 2020 election, and argue this collusion is a core reason the U.S. launched its incursion to capture Maduro.
QAnon influencer Chad Vivas, who has previously been photographed with Trump, highlighted a January 3 Trump post about Dominion, writing: “You think the timing is coincidence? A Venezuelan Military Intelligence whistleblower confirmed the CIA outsources election rigging technology like Smartmatic and Dominion from Venezuela.” Trump later shared a screenshot of Vivas’ X (formerly Twitter) post to Truth Social, prompting Vivas to respond, “Confirmation from the Boss.”
Sean Davis, CEO of conservative magazine The Federalist, wrote on X: “It’s gonna be wild when Maduro tries to plead to lesser charges by proffering evidence that the 2020 election was stolen.” Ed Martin, a pardon attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice, quoted Davis’ post in response and added only an exclamation mark to signal agreement. “Drugs may be an issue in Maduro's capture, but I think the real reason is that Venezuela was being used to launder election rigging technology by the Deep State,” prominent QAnon promoter Jordan Sather wrote on his Telegram channel.
The White House did not respond to questions about whether unproven election-rigging claims factored into the decision to launch the operation in Venezuela.
In the days and weeks after the 2020 election, Trump and his legal team pushed extreme conspiracy theories in a bid to overturn the results, even though Trump’s own senior officials at the time confirmed the election was the most secure in U.S. history.
Leading that charge was Sidney Powell, one of Trump’s former attorneys, who was the first major figure to push claims of Venezuelan involvement in 2020 election rigging. In November 2020, Powell cited anonymous, unverified affidavits from a former Venezuelan military official to claim Smartmatic helped the Venezuelan government rig its own domestic elections, and suggested the company pulled the same scheme to help Biden win the U.S. presidency.
In recent days, Powell has celebrated the Trump administration’s action in Venezuela and promoted claims that Venezuela was behind the unproven 2020 vote rigging, including sharing an X post from Emerald Robinson, who hosts a show on LindellTV, a streaming platform owned by prominent election denier Mike Lindell.
Robinson has pushed the Venezuela election conspiracy for years. This week, she claimed she has been targeted for pushing these claims, alongside Powell, Lindell, and former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani — all of whom have pushed false 2020 rigging claims. “They bankrupted Rudy Giuliani, they hounded Sidney Powell into exile, they tried to kill Mike Lindell,” Robinson wrote in an X post. “They kept me under surveillance. Don't talk to me about mercy. It's fine if you want to forgive traitors to America who stole our elections, but only after they hang.”
Most election denial groups and influencers that rose to prominence after 2020 were quick to tie Maduro’s arrest to their election fraud narrative. Election denial group South Carolina Safe Elections published a blog Saturday titled “Will the Arrest of Maduro Bring Election Disclosure?” Similarly, Seth Keshel, a former Army intelligence captain who became one of the most visible voices in election denial circles and claimed last year he had briefed the White House on election fraud, published a blog post called “President Who Stole Election Captured by U.S. Forces.” When asked about Keshel’s alleged briefing, a White House spokesperson said the administration “does not comment on mysterious meetings with unnamed staffers.”
To stand out from other conspiracy promoters, some influencers have added their own unique twists to the claim that Maduro helped steal the 2020 election.
Benny Johnson, a right-wing influencer with close ties to the Trump administration, claimed on his podcast that he has insider knowledge of Maduro’s arrest, which he called “Trump's final revenge for the election theft of 2020.” Citing an anonymous source in the intelligence community who claims to have spoken with Maduro in the past, Johnson claimed Maduro holds evidence the 2020 election was rigged, and that both Venezuela and China were involved in the scheme.
No credible evidence has ever been produced to back up claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 election, but election denial groups have continued to push their false narrative. Months ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, these groups are mobilizing again: they are pushing baseless claims about immigrant voting, and leveraging their increased access to the Trump administration to promote their conspiracy theories to a wider audience.
