The Trump administration has quietly directed federal prosecutors in Miami to stand down from pursuing criminal investigations into Venezuela’s acting President Delcy Rodríguez, according to current and former U.S. law enforcement officials who spoke to the Associated Press. The directive, the details of which have not previously been reported, marks a significant shift in the U.S. law enforcement posture toward a senior Venezuelan official whom the Drug Enforcement Administration has tracked for years.
It remains unclear whether prosecutors had implicated Rodríguez in any specific crimes or whether investigators were moving toward an indictment before the instruction was issued. A Justice Department spokesperson told the AP in an email that “there was never an investigation into her to shut down.” The spokesperson did not address whether any preliminary investigative work had been underway.
DEA records obtained by the AP earlier this year show that Rodríguez has consistently appeared on the radar of federal law enforcement dating to at least 2018. The AP reported in January that DEA documents labeled Rodríguez a “priority target” as recently as 2022. She has never been criminally charged in the United States, unlike several other senior Venezuelan officials who have faced U.S. indictments in recent years on drug-trafficking and corruption charges.
The stand-down instruction comes amid a broader warming of relations between the Trump administration and Venezuela. The White House lifted sanctions on Rodríguez in April, and she has since met with senior U.S. officials including CIA Director John Ratcliffe, who traveled to Caracas in January. Rodríguez, who assumed the acting presidency after the U.S.-backed removal of Nicolás Maduro, has publicly called for foreign oil investment and warmer bilateral ties.
The AP’s reporting relies on current and former U.S. law enforcement officials who described the prosecutor directive on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss internal Justice Department deliberations. The Trump administration has not publicly commented on the instruction.
Rodríguez is a longtime figure in Venezuelan politics and the sister of Jorge Rodríguez, the president of Venezuela’s National Assembly. The DEA’s interest in her, documented in agency records, predates the Maduro government’s collapse and spans multiple U.S. administrations. The Trump administration’s decision to instruct prosecutors to avoid pursuing investigations into her represents a diplomatic accommodation without recent precedent in U.S.-Venezuela relations.
MSI previously reported that the U.S. lifted sanctions on Rodríguez in early April, removing a key barrier to diplomatic engagement between Washington and Caracas. The prosecutor stand-down directive extends that engagement into the law enforcement arena, raising questions about the boundary between foreign policy priorities and criminal investigations in the administration’s approach to Venezuela.