MIKE POMPEO/MILITARY/NATIONAL SECURITY/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/VENEZUELA: “Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Thursday [5-2-19] that the Trump administration ‘will simply not rule out’ military action in Venezuela. And on Friday [5-3-19], Trump administration officials met for the second day in a row at the Pentagon to discuss options for toppling the country’s embattled autocratic leader. Speaking to reporters back in March, national security adviser John Bolton held a yellow notepad with a line of text conspicuously visible: ‘5,000 troops to Colombia,’ he had written. Together, the actions and planning meetings — one of them held in ‘the Tank,’ the Pentagon’s most secure room — are part of a threatening drumbeat aimed at Nicolás Maduro, who, U.S. officials say, may be on the brink of ouster…But on a day when Trump spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose backing of Maduro is causing tensions with the U.S., Trump officials and national security experts said mounting talk of U.S. military action is almost certainly hollow. Two U.S. officials told POLITICO these actions are designed more to rattle Maduro — and Venezuelan military leaders who have been a key source of support for him — than to foreshadow an American military effort in Venezuela.”
–Eliana Johnson and Wesley Morgan, “Trump team tries to rattle Maduro with military tough talk,” Politico, May 3, 2019 7:42 pm