In November 2017, Harry Sargeant III, a wealthy American businessman, flew to Venezuela to see about buying some oil. Sargeant, the former finance chairman of the Florida Republican Party, was looking to purchase a New Jersey asphalt plant that needed a steady supply of the heavy crude that Venezuela has in abundance. Never mind that the South American country was in the cross-hairs of the Trump administration. The trip got off to a worrying start when Sargeant’s plane was directed to a special hangar in Caracas and surrounded by soldiers. But what followed, he says, was privileged treatment, including an unexpected meeting the next day with Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela’s socialist […]