President Donald Trump's touted Freedom Fuel gas-station network faces fresh scrutiny after a former State Department official questioned possible links to Venezuela.
During an episode of Court of History, former State Department expert on international crime Jonathan Winer suggested Freedom Fuel may be tied to Venezuela's opaque oil revenue and selling cheaper gas through an arrangement that's "literally unprecedented in American history."
Freedom Fuel appeared around Philadelphia in late June with regular gas priced at $3.47 a gallon, which was roughly 50 cents under local prices and below estimated wholesale costs. The White House has promoted the chain as proof that Trump's energy agenda is working without explaining how the stations undercut every competitor.
"People can't mysteriously get fuel at a lower price and continue to offer that," Winer said. "You could, of course, do a very short promotion, but you basically can't do it."
Since January, the administration has controlled Venezuelan oil revenue under what it called a custodianship and with almost no public accounting, Winer noted.
"It's all remarkably opaque," he said. "You would think we would know, but we don't."
The Trump administration led an operation to remove former Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro from power and detain him for drug trafficking charges. Winer noted that Trump boasted shortly after, "To the victor go the spoils, and these are the spoils," referring to Venezuelan oil. According to Winer, Trump even added, "We're getting billions."
According to Winer, "Freedom Fuel is maintaining as much opacity as it can. It's not explaining anything." At the same time, "The White House is maintaining as much opacity as it can," except to say that Trump, his family, and their businesses have no financial stake in Freedom Fuel.
However, Winer suggested that Freedom Fuel is "a patronage network which the United States is sponsoring." He called on Congress to subpoena records from the Treasury, State, and Energy departments.
"When you have governments that are being opaque rather than transparent, it's usually because there's something they want to hide," he warned.