The chronology

January–April 2026 — Trump takes control of Venezuelan oil arrangements. Following the January intervention, the Administration creates a new framework governing Venezuelan petroleum sales. By April 1, Trump publicly describes the United States and Venezuela as, “in a true sense, joint venture partners,” while saying the United States does not need Venezuela’s oil.

Late April — Jarrod Agen leads the U.S. commercial delegation to Venezuela. Agen, Executive Director of the White House National Energy Dominance Council (NEDC), leads a delegation to Caracas, meets Acting President Delcy Rodríguez and her government, and works with private companies pursuing Venezuelan energy and mining agreements.

May 1 — Mercuria announces its Venezuela agreements. Mercuria is one of the world’s largest privately owned commodity trading companies, with a major business in oil and energy. Mercuria announces that, together with Heeney Capital, it had secured strategic offtake agreements for Venezuelan bulk commodities and gold projects, backed by associated investment commitments, as part of what Mercuria itself called a “White House-supported initiative” to revive Venezuela’s energy and mining sectors. It states that the agreements had been advanced alongside the U.S. delegation to Caracas—the delegation led by Agen—to facilitate new investment and supply agreements “in oil and mining.” Mercuria projects about $2.2 billion annually in mineral exports, with additional prospective transactions in aluminum, nickel and ferrous products potentially worth another $3 billion annually. Agen subsequently identifies the Mercuria-Heeney agreement as among the deals resulting from the mission; Mercuria publicly thanks him for his “leadership.”

June 23 — Freedom Fuel is created. Freedom Fuel Network LLC is incorporated in Delaware. Its organizers include Randy Brown and Yoni Gontownik. Gontownik had recently been an investment director at Mercuria. Mercuria says it has no involvement with Freedom Fuel.

June 29 — Trump intervenes publicly on gasoline prices. He warns gasoline retailers to reduce their prices or face federal investigation.

July 1 — Trump announces Freedom Fuel before it opens. Two days before the announced launch, Trump tells the public the company’s name, geographic market, opening date, number of stations and planned pricing. He announces that a “VERY smart Retailer” will lower prices at 25 Freedom Fuel stations in greater Philadelphia and says: “This Retailer is taking the lead, and others should follow.” The White House subsequently acknowledges that Administration officials had discussions with people who established Freedom Fuel, while saying the Administration neither funded nor subsidized it.

July 3 — Agen appears at Freedom Fuel’s launch. Agen, the same White House energy official who had led the Venezuela delegation, appears at a Freedom Fuel station on opening day, posts photographs of himself there, praises its gasoline price as fifty cents below the Pennsylvania average, and credits Trump with lowering oil prices.

July 7 — The White House promotes Freedom Fuel. An official White House video declares that the first Freedom Fuel station has “LANDED,” credits Trump with leading the effort to reduce gasoline prices, and explains the promotional $3.47 price as honoring the 47th president.

July–August — Trump increasingly describes Venezuelan petroleum as something the United States is taking for itself. He says Venezuelan oil is being shipped to U.S. Gulf Coast refineries, that “we’re taking tremendous amounts of oil,” and that the United States has already taken out “many, many times” what it spent on the January military operation. On August 5, he goes further: “We’re taking their oil. To the victor belong the spoils.”

August 7 — The Washington Post substantially expands the Freedom Fuel record. Its investigation identifies Gontownik’s recent Mercuria employment and other participants and property relationships behind Freedom Fuel, while finding that the economics and supply arrangements underlying its discounted gasoline remain undisclosed.

There are therefore two documented bridges between the stories:

Freedom Fuel → Gontownik → Mercuria → White House-supported Venezuela initiative

and

Freedom Fuel → Agen → White House/NEDC → Venezuela initiative/Mercuria.

Did Venezuelan oil, refined product derived from Venezuelan oil, financing, preferential pricing, or any other Venezuela economic benefits reach Freedom Fuel? The public facts do not yet answer that question. Further investigative work is essential to determine whether the Trump Administration conferred benefits on Freedom Fuel beyond the ones - being publicly recognized and praised by the White House as it began rolling out its roughly 30 gas stations in Venezuela - that are already visible.

Recently, Trump has been making some provocative statements about the benefits the U.S. is getting from the Venezuelan oil. “We’re taking their oil,” Trump declared in an August 5 speech in Las Vegas. “To the victor belong the spoils.” Read the facts provided in this piece published today in the Washington Spectator, and draw your own conclusions. There is lots of further reporting to be done on this.

There is indeed a fundamental threat to upcoming U.S. elections and it is not from overseas. As I lay out in my recent article in The Washington Spectator, Trump and his appointees are systematically working to demolish institutions that protect elections, threaten election workers and other who might get in their way, and preparing the ground with the goal of enabling them to seize control of voting and voting processes in the name of national security.

According to former Trump strategist Steve Bannon, a specific announcement by the President to move forward with as-yet-unspecified actions to implement his plan through declaring a national emergency could come as soon as the last week of August. As reported by Media Matters, on July 29, Bannon told his War Room podcast audience that President Donald Trump will issue a national emergency declaration on election integrity at the end of August. “Block the last week of August out,” Bannon said, because “it’s coming.”

My piece corrals what team Trump has been doing, and where it could head.

https://washingtonspectator.org/emergency-planning-the-president-is-preparing-to-challenge-2026-midterms-the-country-can-still-act-to-protect-them/

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