A federal judge in Miami is criticizing prosecutors for an apparent attempt to undercut a court order and try to take control of an oceanside condo belonging to a former Republican congressman ahead of a high-profile trial connected to a $50 million consulting contract with Venezuela’s government.

A former Miami congressman who signed a $50 million consulting contract with Venezuela’s socialist government was arrested Monday on charges of money laundering and representing a foreign government without registering.

New filings in a civil suit allege that a former Miami congressman who signed a $50 million consulting contract with Venezuela’s socialist government not only did no apparent work, but also channeled a large chunk of the money to a yacht company on behalf of a fugitive billionaire.

Knowledgeable sources and message exchanges reveal that Venezuela’s government quietly offered last year to release imprisoned Americans in exchange for the U.S. letting go a key financier of President Nicolás Maduro.

Police departments in 2021 are desperate for positive press.

(AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)MIAMI – Newly filed lobbying records show Venezuela’s socialist government previously hired a longtime Democratic Party donor for $6 million at the same time it was lobbying to discourage the U.S. from imposing sanctions on the oil-rich nation. Federal prosecutors in Miami are also investigating whether the Republican broke foreign lobbying rules. Payments came from a little-known, Delaware-registered subsidiary, PDV USA, which provided shareholder services to PDVSA independent of Citgo's oil operations. “Wiss was engaged to provide PDV USA and its affiliates with legal services only,” she wrote in an e-mailed response to questions. PDV USA said Wiss provided updates on disputes involving PDVSA and advice on immigration, insurance, and cryptocurrency.

The purpose: to lure Exxon back to Venezuela after a decade's absence and inject much-needed dynamism into the OPEC nation's collapsing oil industry. But Sessions did engage in other mediation efforts in Venezuela over the next 15 months. The earlier email regarding Exxon and his connection to Rivera was not known at the time. The five-sentence message sent to Sessions' personal email address, which starts with the word eagle," is short on specifics. The U.S. Department of State would be your best resource for any information regarding contacts made with Venezuela, a spokesman said.