A war is raging in the Middle East. Washington is in talks with Havana. The United States remains heavily involved in Venezuela.<\/p>\n
But Secretary of State Marco Rubio had to set all that aside on Tuesday morning. He had been called as a witness in a federal corruption trial in Miami, where he spent several hours testifying against an old friend.<\/p>\n
The highly unusual turn for a sitting cabinet member created a stir in downtown Miami as Mr. Rubio prepared to take the stand against David Rivera, a former Republican congressman. Mr. Rubio\u2019s testimony drew heightened security at the courthouse and a gaggle of news reporters eager to catch a glimpse of the secretary of state.<\/p>\n
Despite the fact that his longtime friend and former Tallahassee housemate was testifying against him, Mr. Rivera seemed upbeat before going into court on Tuesday. \u201cLet\u2019s party,\u201d he told members of the news media.<\/p>\n
Federal prosecutors have accused Mr. Rivera<\/a> of secretly lobbying on behalf of the Venezuelan government in 2017 and 2018. At the time, Mr. Rubio was a Republican senator from Florida. He has not been implicated in any wrongdoing.<\/p>\n According to prosecutors, Venezuela\u2019s state-run oil company secretly hired Mr. Rivera\u2019s consulting firm for $50 million to lobby members of Congress and the White House for a thaw in U.S.-Venezuela relations. Mr. Rivera and an associate, Esther Nuhfer, were charged in 2022 with conspiracy, failure to register as foreign agents and other crimes.<\/p>\n Prosecutors say that Mr. Rivera split the contract earnings, which amounted to about $20 million, with Ms. Nuhfer and two people who were not charged in the grand jury indictment. Mr. Rivera and Ms. Nuhfer have pleaded not guilty.<\/p>\n Their defense lawyers have argued that they did not need to register as foreign agents because their contract was with an American company \u2014 the U.S. subsidiary of the Venezuelan state-run oil company \u2014 and not with Venezuela.<\/p>\n Mr. Rivera served in Congress from 2011 to 2013, after a number of years in the Florida House of Representatives with Mr. Rubio. The two men owned a house together<\/a> in Tallahassee from 2005 to 2015.<\/p>\n Ms. Nuhfer is a political consultant whose firm has assisted in the campaigns of Mr. Rivera, Mr. Rubio and President Trump. She, too, was close with Mr. Rubio, one of her defense lawyers said in opening statements in the trial on Monday, noting that Mr. Rubio had attended her wedding.<\/p>\n But at least some of Mr. Rubio\u2019s testimony on Tuesday was not helpful to his old friends.<\/p>\n He had no idea, he said, that Mr. Rivera had secured a $50 million contract with PDV USA, an American subsidiary of the Venezuelan state-run oil company, Petr\u00f3leos de Venezuela. Had he known about the contract, Mr. Rubio testified, he would have acted differently in two meetings that he held with Mr. Rivera in Washington in 2017.<\/p>\n \u201cI would not have taken any subsequent action on this matter,\u201d Mr. Rubio told Harold E. Schimkat, an assistant U.S. attorney, during his direct examination. Had he known, Mr. Rubio added later, \u201cit would have been shocking to me.\u201d<\/p>\n His testimony lasted about three hours, including two cross-examinations. Mr. Rubio did not speak to reporters before or after his appearance.<\/p>\n Defense lawyers tried to show that their clients and Mr. Rubio were very friendly, arguing that their meetings had focused on how to achieve their shared goal of bringing democracy to Venezuela.<\/p>\n At one point, Mr. Rubio was asked if he was \u201cfamiliar\u201d with Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, the former Venezuelan leader whom the U.S. military captured<\/a> in January, an operation he helped orchestrate. He said that he was.<\/p>\n Prosecutors have argued that the Venezuelan government secretly hired Mr. Rivera and Ms. Nuhfer when Mr. Maduro was president to lobby for easing U.S. sanctions against the South American country. The defense has countered that, on the contrary, Mr. Rivera and Ms. Nuhfer were trying to find a way to push out Mr. Maduro.<\/p>\n On Tuesday, a lawyer for Mr. Rivera, Edward R. Shohat, cross-examined Mr. Rubio and presented him with a memoir that Mr. Rubio wrote in 2012, noting that Mr. Rubio had credited both the defendants in the acknowledgments.<\/p>\n Then Mr. Rubio jokingly asked if he should autograph the book. Mr. Shohat said he should. \u201cIs that allowed?\u201d Mr. Rubio asked the judge, before signing it.<\/p>\n