Diosdado Cabello, vice president of Venezuela's authoritarian Socialist Party and a powerful figure in President Nicolás Maduro's inner circle, accused opposition leader María Corina Machado and former Caracas police commissioner Iván Simonovis of plotting to "destabilize the country" with U.S. backing.
Cabello's announcement follows a report by Reuters noting that three U.S. Aegis guided-missile destroyers — the USS Gravely, USS Jason Dunham, and USS Sampson — will arrive off Venezuela's coast shortly as part of what the army is describing as an expanded counter-narcotics operations by the Trump administration.
