A powerful Venezuelan leader may have issued an order to kill Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who accused the former leader of drug trafficking, according to a published report.
Diosdado Cabello, a lawmaker from the ruling Socialist Party in Venezuela, is believed to have made the order to kill the senator, according to the Miami Herald, citing intelligence obtained by the U.S. last month.
Rubio has previously called Cabello, long suspected by U.S. officials of drug trafficking, the “Pablo Escobar of Venezuela,” the Herald reported. He also suspected on Twitter that Cabello was the head of Venezuela’s security forces, which U.S. officials believe.
In a tweet on Aug. 6, Rubio called Cabello a “narco leader” after Venezuela quashed an uprising at a military base.
Cabello then responded with an allegation that the U.S. was behind the terrorist attack, since Rubio was the first foreign official to respond to news of the uprising. He then called the senator “Narco Rubio.”
The memo finds that Cabello could have gone as far as to contact “unspecified Mexican nationals” as part of the scheme.
Rubio has been guarded by a security detail while he has been both in Miami and in Washington.
