Original subtitles

Thank you.

So in May 2020, I was raided by the FBI.

They took technical gear, weapons,

my encrypted drive, 50 grand in cash.

My lawyer's concern was it would have been some kind of death by cop scenario

which they did the raid in order to try to suicide me or have me fight them.

Like, can I be honest with you?

So I don't really want to shoot Americans.

That's not my deal.

And so when I see a dude outside my fucking apartment, instead of shooting

my Glock, jumping out, grabbing his blaster, and then clearing through

counterclockwise full of the other 20 dudes, Jason Bourne style, I decided

I would just get the fuck out of there.

Hopped on the bike, and I headed south to Mexico.

I didn't know who was...

with me or who was against me, and I knew that there were Americans involved

the whole situation.

I didn't know if they wanted me off the chessboard. I didn't know.

Why did the FBI raid you last year?

So I planned and executed an operation to invade Venezuela and depose the

illegitimate ruler, Nicolas Maduro, in hopes of liberating 30 million people.

How'd that go?

No so bueno.

Badly. Badly.

Not a story that seems like it was ripped right from the pages of a spy

but it's playing out in real life.

And we're getting new images tonight of what Venezuela says is the failed plot

to overthrow the Venezuelan government.

Operation Gideon, as this botched mission was dubbed, was over before the

boats even hit Venezuela's shores.

Nothing to do with our government.

There was no U .S. government direct involvement in this operation.

If we'd have been involved, it would have gone differently.

U .S. officials say they're looking into the self -proclaimed architect of a

failed infiltration into Venezuela this weekend, Florida contractor and ex

-Green Beret Jordan Goudreau. The man behind Operation Gideon, Jordan

was boasting on Twitter of the mission's success.

A $200 million contract that supposedly the opposition leader, Juan Guaido,

signed with Mr. Goudreau.

This is like Firefest the Army. This had no chance of working. I don't know if

we have one foot in reality and one foot in delusion.

I don't know what is real.

I got movement on second target.

Re -engaging.

I think

that's got him.

He's down.

He's done.

Oh, that was nasty.

Those times for me, as terrifying as they were,

It's one of the best times of my life.

Guys who love Special Forces don't want to do anything else other than this job.

We're in the business of war.

And the more you get comfortable with it, the more you do it, it becomes like

this grub.

Special operations veteran.

When we get out, there's no mission.

That's what I struggled with. Like, apocalypse now.

Waiting for a mission.

All I could think of was getting back into the jungle.

And finding one's difficult.

You can't take a guy who one day was Captain America, and then next second,

you're done now, now you can work at McDonald's.

I wasn't hurting for cash.

I just didn't... I didn't have a home.

Like Rambo.

I didn't know where to go. I didn't have anything to do.

I had my Harley, and I rode around, and I would go to other countries, pick up

some small work here and there.

After Hurricane Marie in Puerto Rico, I helped with the reconstruction effort.

It was one of the first missions where I really saw some good in what I was

doing.

And so I started a security company.

Silver Corps USA.

The world is dangerous.

Some problems can't be solved with conversation.

My name is Jordan, and I've spent my entire adult life in combat and training

for combat.

I was a soldier since I was 17.

I both planned and led hundreds of combat missions. I was a special forces

soldier for most of my career.

and tried to get the company off the ground.

My friend who worked with me in Puerto Rico, he recommended me to a guy named

Keith Schiller.

Keith Schiller is director of operations at the White House. He's one of Donald

Trump's closest advisors.

Keith Schiller, the man who spent the better part of 20 years as Trump's

bodyguard, who knows where a lot of the bodies are buried when it comes to the

president. He was one step removed from Donald Trump. They are lifelong friends.

After he left the White House, Keith Schiller started a security company for

presidential events.

We will make America great again. Thank you.

Thank you.

And I actually did win the rally.

Schiller was looking for guys of my background.

And so he reached out to me.

I have unique skill sets.

And he thought that I would be a good fit for this project.

T. Schiller and I drove together to a meeting at WeWork with some Venezuelan

political operatives.

We meet in Miami because it's the center of all of the Venezuelan expats.

I was brought in to see about the viability of catalyzing a regime change

Venezuela.

Hola.

I'm Mike Pence.

And on behalf of President Donald Trump and all the American people, let me

express the unwavering support of the United States as you, the people of

Venezuela, raise your voices in a call for freedom. The conflict in Venezuela

was explained to me into that meeting.

In Venezuela and across the Western Hemisphere, socialism is dying

and liberty, prosperity and democracy are being reborn.

President Trump is taking sides in the political crisis brewing in Venezuela.

He's announced his support for opposition leader Juan Guaido, who has

himself the country's interim president.

They told me about Juan Guaido.

Guaido calling Maduro a dictator who didn't win the presidency in free and

elections.

The National Assembly is basically the only democratic institution left in the

country. And Guaido is the head of the National Assembly. At least 38 nations

now back Guaido. Only a handful of countries are supporting President

Maduro. The people of Venezuela are standing for freedom and democracy.

And the United States of America is standing right by their side.

They've explained to me that you have the Venezuela that is okay with Nicolas

Maduro and the current regime, which is a very small percentage, but these are

wealthy elites. These are people who benefit from the Maduro regime.

Then you have everybody else.

Thousands of protesters fill Caracas, calling for President Nicolas Maduro's

outturn.

Everybody and their mom was trying to get money to liberate Venezuela back

There were eight or ten different groups in Miami.

The WeWork meeting was the first meeting that sparked everything.

There were no bones about it. We were discussing black operations, digging,

everything under the sun as it pertained to liberating Venezuela or deposing the

current leader of Venezuela, Maduro, and replacing that leader with Juan Guaido.

Keith Schiller was involved in a company called Global Governments. Global

Governments was a lobbyist group who used their political relationships for

business. The Global Governments team would do the business side of

They would have had their pick of contracts from the new Venezuelan

Venezuela is an extremely resource -rich country for its size. Gold, uranium,

obviously oil, and so we're talking billions of dollars.

It'll make a big difference to the United States economically if we could

American oil companies produce the oil capabilities in Venezuela. My

understanding was that these Venezuelan political operatives represented the

highest echelon of the Venezuelan government.

And T. Schiller represented the highest level of the U .S. government.

I felt I was in good hands with these guys, and they assured me that we would

definitely get U .S. government approval. If not, had it already, had

unofficial approval.

I was brought in to do the clandestine part, which was to help liberate

Venezuela. Civil society is collapsing in Venezuela, which is why the stakes

so high here and why President Trump did extend recognition to the interim

president and the National Assembly as the real constitutional authority.

So the money is one thing, and that's great, and it's good to have money, and

everybody wants money, and that's cool.

But the big part was the challenge.

And so when somebody says to me, hey, we want you to liberate 30 million people,

knowing my ethos as a Green Beret and knowing the void that was in me, there

no fucking way I was going to pass that up.

I was always going to be in the army.

It's always what I was going to do.

I just had this thing in me.

I was born in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada.

If you see pictures of me as a kid, I had fatigues in the bandana, and I loved

Rambo, full metal jacket, platoon.

I don't think any mom wants her son to join the Army.

But you can join at 17 with a waiver, and my mom needed to sign the waiver.

I wanted more than just the Canadian Army. There's very little chance you're

ever going to deploy.

Whereas the U .S. military, there's much greater opportunity.

Reporting that an American airline plane was hijacked. I was in Fort Bragg at

the time.

It was like something out of Starship Troopers.

In the same way, everybody was armed in the teeth. It was, you know, full

lockdown. Everybody thought we were going to war, which we did.

And everybody was excited.

When you get a security clearance, you have to renounce your other citizenship.

So I filled out paperwork, submitted it to the Canadian government. If you were

enlisted before the attack, you get your citizenship expedited, and I got it

very fast.

U .S. Army Ranger School, the toughest test in the U .S. military, where elite

warriors have their physical and mental limits taken to the extreme.

I always wanted to be the top of the class, best shot, most physically fit.

But in an unhealthy way.

Like, I hate to lose.

It's like Heraclitus said, war is the father and the king of all.

Some he has made men, of others kings, and of some slaves.

I have been in charge of being a reporter at the military and border

In Venezuela, things happen, facts that are usually fantastic.

There is a lot of magical realism.

There are things that seem fantastic that can happen in a country and they

happen in ours.

Operation Gedeon

I was sent by global governments to Colombia to figure out if a Venezuelan

operation was even possible.

days of meetings with different exiles.

You

and

I are warriors.

We're not...

We're not good with languages.

This is where I met Clipper Alcala.

Why does the president always talk about coup d 'etat?

Because... I think you're asking for it.

Clipper Alcala is a Venezuelan soldier who reached the rank of

Major General.

We will be, Mr. General of the Division, Clipper Alcala.

It's a revolution of the people!

Chosen by Hugo Chávez as his successor, Nicolas Maduro has followed his mentor

into power.

Some Chávez loyalists have their doubts.

Alcalá arremetió contra Nicolás Maduro, dijo que es un traidor.

Maduro constantemente nos miente. Maduro no respeta nuestra constitución

nacional. Maduro ha llevado al caos al país.

. . .

That can take anyone, that can kill anyone, that can kill anyone, that can

someone unthinkable as a human being.

I decided that I had to fight this man, and I will fight

until the end of my life.

I have to get out of this situation,

and I start from today to try to do something.

Breaking news out of Venezuela, where an attempted coup is underway there.

Opposition leader Juan Guaido publicly called for a military uprising.

John Bolton, national security advisor to President Donald Trump, supported

Guaido. I can tell you there's a lot going on beneath the surface. The

opposition is in constant contact with...

Large numbers of admirals and other supporters within the Maduro

But Venezuela's military stuck with Maduro, who remained in power.

But the opposition really wants to swing serious military support its way.

It's likely going to have to come up with a new strategy.

that had abandoned the armed forces, went to Colombia.

Clíber Alcalá decides to direct them, organize them, and form several

camps.

During

that

training process,

the Venezuelan opposition appears and offers help, support,

So we will be the liberation force or the task force. What I would like to do

I would like to build a tiered strike force.

Two tiered strike forces. We'll train them.

My men will train them and then we'll equip them.

At first I was very skeptical about General Alcalá.

I figured he was just a Chavez guy and I didn't trust him.

But he never lied to me once. He showed no signs of deception.

He was just a guy who wanted to liberate his country.

General Clever Alcala was in charge of the operation.

So I was legitimately going to link up with Venezuelan military units that

General Clever Alcala had accrued inside Venezuela, and we were going to

catalyze a rebellion.

So catalyze is just a spark. That's all we needed.

We needed the Venezuelans on the ground to see the face of a gringo to realize

that this was actually going forward and this was trusted, that this had U .S.

support.

And if all of the units in Venezuela activated based off of that spark, the

operation would have been successful.

Triunfo, de corazón, señor Jordan y usted, le queremos dar las gracias por

intentar la liberación de una nación que no es la de ustedes.

Gracias a ustedes, mi general, y gracias a ustedes nosotros vamos a liberar

Venezuela. Y ténganlo por seguro, si el día de mañana su nación nos llega a

necesitar, nosotros vamos a estar allí, hermano. Aunque sea con una piedra, con

un bate, pero vamos a estar allí.

They're soldiers.

I'm a soldier.

And I was in the position to help. So of course I'm going to help. And so when I

look in these soldiers' eyes in Venezuela, they're patriots, exiles from

country. And they say, you know, will you help us?

The fuck am I going to say, no?

I mean, it's the motto of the special forces.

They oppress the liber, free the oppressed.

I'm a special forces guy. I was a special forces guy my whole... Younger

young blood.

Make no mistake, guys. So the deal is there will be no chance in this. There

will be no trying in this. We're not going to try to do this.

We are going to do this. This is going to succeed. It will be unfair for them.

My first plane was Iraq, and that was Baghdad.

The first month, I was terrified.

Tell them to stop! Tell them to stop!

You know, I would come back from a mission, a gunfight, and I would just

fucking guts out.

I got fucking blood all over my goddamn blood.

Back then, dudes were dying left and right. We had two Rangers get blown the

fuck up in a Stryker. We just got in country.

And the left -seat ride, right -seat ride, two of those guys got cut in half

with 50 cals.

I got back from that, and I was like, fuck.

I don't know if I'm made for this thing.

But the more you do it, the more you kind of start to like it.

My grandfather went to World War I, and he stayed there for a few years.

But when they came back, they were back.

Compare this with my generation.

Generation of perpetual war.

So we would keep going, coming back, keep going, coming back, do normal life,

maybe do some training, go back to war.

So you normalized war as part of your daily routine.

Yeah, there's blood everywhere, bro.

Where's our other body bag, dude?

Oh, yeah, one per truck.

And a lot of guys weren't comfortable with that, and those guys would get out

the military.

But some of us really liked it.

Once this shit happens, you guys will have freedom of reign in the political

arena.

Right.

When I went to Columbia to do the feasibility study, global governments

forward, the contract is signed, and assure me that the operation will be

financed. I said, great, no problem. I brought my guys, I committed my money.

Yes. But then the deal with global governments fell through.

The money never materialized.

And everything fell apart.

And I'm pissed off. I was out over 100 grand.

Everything I had.

I invested everything I had.

But a month goes by and a guy named Phoenix, who was Juan Guaido's cousin,

reaches out to me and basically says, hey, we want to meet with you.

And I represented, you know, legitimate presidents of Venezuela. His name is

Juan Guaido. I said, I know.

I said, OK, let's meet.

We meet in a Dunkin' Donuts in Orlando, all places.

So we meet and Phoenix says, hey, listen, we would like to keep this

going because we're not kidding.

He then set up a meeting with J .J. Rendon.

According to our constitution, every Venezuelan has the duty, not the right,

duty of doing whatever in their power, being a public officer or a regular

citizen, to bring back democracy in the case that is disrupted or whatever

legitimate means necessary.

J .J. Rendon is a political strategist who has led the presidency to the most

important candidates in Latin America, including Enrique Peña Nieto in Mexico

and a number of others.

Highly commissioned presidential general strategist.

This is J .J.'s official position within Juan Guaidó's scheme.

Powers corrupt everything and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Someone that I will not mention who because it's, for me, unnecessary.

They say there's this guy that he has a proposal, a decorated guy

who has deployed this and that, and he is Greenberry.

And I say, okay, let's talk with the guy.

So I go to J .J. Rendon's hen house, which is in Miami.

Now, he's a wild guy. He's into ninjas and samurai, and he's got, like, ancient

tapestries from the fucking fourth dynasty of the samurai warriors.

I don't know. He loves ninjas. I mean, he was proper.

He was educated.

He was a gentleman, I can say.

J .J. Rendon had a letter of appointment by Juan Guaido to his position as the

crisis strategist. I think it was like five titles, but I don't remember. It

have been the unilateral crisis management strategist, you know, dark

don't know.

He wages psychological warfare when he's in the room with you. He's a cagey guy.

He's a worthy adversary.

I have very low tolerance, very low, to bullshit.

But I was prepped, and I had a very good read on how to deal with Rendon, so I

felt I was adequately prepared.

We have a plan with these people in Colombia to get in Venezuela

and take down the government.

We have an agreement with the Colombian government.

We have the people, and I'm flying there frequently.

I'm providing them with training, and we have a plan.

Interesting. What else do you have?

Oh, we have some contacts with the high -level government in the United States.

At which point we started to discuss the next step.

Who's going to pay me, my time, my thing?

Look, I have skin in the game already. You need to show me that you have skin

the game.

The effort that I put on, I talked with other opposition leaders. They made me

waste my time. No one paid me. I spent already this amount of money.

I was wearing a lot of hats.

The business piece was new for me.

Was I in over my head? Yeah, I was.

But I'm always in over my head. I'm in the over your head business.

Let's suppose that we are interested in that.

So what are the next steps?

Because I got screwed once with the first iteration.

I will look at this and I'll do this, but you have to come up with 1 .5.

Okay, we can do that.

So maybe our second or third meeting, JJ Rendon signs a promissory note for $1

.5 million.

Memorandum of understanding.

Okay, let's do that.

He also gives me a wire bank transfer for $50 ,000.

It was like a down payment on the retainer. So that was the process of

or three weeks until there was a moment, okay, I need a contract.

I was putting a lot of pressure on JJ Rendon.

And I said, listen, man, we either do it or we don't do it. And then apparently

JJ called the president of Venezuela and they decided, yes, okay, we're going to

sign this thing.

Okay, let's do the country.

So I get to D .C.

And Juan Guaido is standing by in his office in Caracas.

And I remembered something I learned in spy school in the military.

Tape everything that's critical.

Hi, Mr.

President. Nice to meet you.

Thank you for the effort, for the time.

My pleasure.

Are there any questions, Mr. President, concerns?

I have a lot of concerns, but we will do the right thing for our country.

And we are in a very hard humanitarian crisis,

and we have to resolve.

Yeah, you can do the sign.

Okay, he's finding every page.

Let's go to work.

Okay, sir.

Thank you very much, Mr President. Thank you.

Bye. Likewise.

Thank you.

There was a clause that was a deniability clause, which I've seen that

movies. It's from Mission Impossible.

Should you or any member of your team be caught or killed, the secretary will

disavow any knowledge of your actions.

Fucking crazy.

So the contract was for $212 million.

Minimum. Called my dad up and said, shit, man, I just signed this crazy

contract. It was the first business contract I ever signed.

So, I mean.

El gobierno interino no firma el contrato con Alcalá.

El gobierno interino firma el contrato con Jordan Goudreau.

Clíber Alcalá iba a ser el jefe militar de la operación.

Ellos sabían que el que tenía las tropas era Clíber Alcalá.

El gobierno interino quizás no quiso dar un mensaje confuso de que...

I'm not a lawyer.

I am not a lawyer. And so there was a lawyer who vetted the contract, Travis

Lucas.

Travis Lucas is the lawyer for Keith Schiller and a lot of prominent DC power

players.

From Travis Lucas, I was introduced to a man named Drew Horn, who would have

been very interested in this project because he was an ex -Green Beret, and

it was in his wheelhouse.

And he now worked directly for the vice president, Mike Pence.

We had several discussions, him and I, about the project, and he was very

excited about the project.

The second meeting that Drew Horne and I had, we discussed the nature of the

operation, and there were no bones about it. I was going to catalyze change of

government in Venezuela.

He essentially said, listen, we don't really care how bloody this is. The

is going to flow afterwards.

And I remember that distinctly as I was sitting at PJ Clark's.

You know, Mike Pence said, all options are on the table all options are on the

table all options are on the table

and

the time has come to end the maduro dictatorship once and for

all

So I've got a man directly in touch with the president, directly in touch with

the vice president, and I figured, you know what? I'm good to go.

I had a team in Miami who was working the logistics here. Miami is Casablanca.

It's the center of South American, Central American intrigue.

This place is the hotbed for this sort of activity, obviously with Cuba,

Venezuela, and a lot of expatriates. A big demonstration taking place against

the Maduro regime in Miami.

I had a private plane going out from Opelika Airport in Miami.

It was a very small Cessna, a six -seater.

Who's paying for that?

I didn't ask. All I know, it was at our disposal.

We took, you know, a couple trips to Colombia, moving personnel, some gear,

nothing ITAR, just regular gear, just equipment.

What is non -ITAR?

Non -ITAR basically means it's nothing that's restricted from, you know, no

guns, no level 4 strike plate carriers, nothing, no instruments of war, things

of that nature. The guy who donated supplies was a gentleman in Miami,

Venezuela, patriot, and he just wanted to help out.

He has contracts in South America to sell firearms, tactical gear, things of

that nature.

What would you call his job description?

Well, I would say he would be a tactical... In the United States, we

him... Well, I don't know. We would call him a tactical gear distributor.

What would everybody else call him?

He's an arms dealer.

He's an arms dealer, but he is 100 % on the level. Everything he does is 100 %

ITAR compliant.

Days later, Jordan, he came. He said, okay, I want the $1 .5 million deposit.

I need you to prove that you're serious.

J .J. Rendon kept saying, we're going to pay you in two weeks.

In order to move money in these amounts for a thing like that, you need

permissions of treasury and things. Do you understand?

He didn't understand any of that.

They kept saying two weeks, two weeks. He became like another person.

Look at you. How is it possible that you live like this and you don't

have 1 .5 million?

armors and paintings and your apartment and whatever. How is it possible that

you don't care?

You've got 30 million people starving, living in squalor. And on the other

you've got these dickheads living in fucking Miami, high on the hog.

Are you really telling me that the Venezuelan people are dying? We're

for that for the last 22 years.

You're just arriving to the movie.

Late, by the way.

We checked it out.

And that was red flag after red flag. We see that he didn't have any contact

with the administration.

J .J. Rendon was specifically looking for my D .C. contacts to provide

to the operation, which I had.

I don't think any of that is true, that he has the connection, that he talked to

people. He was the guy in search of an opportunity.

In our point of view, this agreement is a prenup.

You sign a prenup, and then you don't get married.

The supposed wife that is your ex -girlfriend now.

She cannot come and say, oh, I want half of your assets.

We will have sex Wednesdays and Fridays. I say, no, you're my ex -girlfriend.

They thought that, oh, well, we've got this contract with this guy.

So we're good.

We're just not going to give him any money. I say, look, you didn't bring the

contacts. You don't have the license. We don't like your tone.

And it's over.

Maduro is an illegitimate ruler, a tyrant who brutalizes his people, but

Maduro's grip on tyranny will be smashed and broken.

We were in a good moment of the opposition.

Here this evening is a very brave man who carries with him the hopes, dreams

aspirations of all Venezuelans.

Joining us in the gallery is the true and legitimate president of Venezuela,

Juan Guaido.

Mr. President, please take this message back to your...

J .J. Rendon is a seller of illusions.

I have no doubt that J .J. manipulates information for the Americans.

American officials believed that the opposition

was solid and credible when it really wasn't.

wants to announce today an additional tranche of $118 million to aid the

Venezuelan crisis response.

The United States will provide an additional $56 million to support our

in the region.

So it wasn't

in their best interest to liberate Venezuela.

They didn't want to. They just wanted to appear like they were liberating

Venezuela. They're full of shit. They were making too much money.

Who is him to even give a proper opinion?

Stick at it.

You know, we are suffering, fighting, getting the heat for 23

years. And you decide that you're going to save the country?

Really?

One guy who signed a contract with me three months ago broke the contract

because they're playing a game at the expense of a country.

They are even planning to stop this operation.

Con los campamentos de entrenamiento que tenía Clíber Alcalá, el gobierno

venezolano tenía bastante conocimiento de lo que estaba sucediendo en Colombia.

El gobierno venezolano

se relaciona el gobierno interino para iniciar unos diálogos de

conversación y facilitarle.

to negotiate with the criminal government.

I said that this presidential objective, which was Venezuela, was also theirs.

And that's what I said.

I really said that.

Leopoldo López sends to Colombia to the deputy Lester Toledo to try

to convince General Cliver Alcalá

se ejecutara una operación contra Nicolás Maduro.

In some way, as we said before, the way to eliminate me physically.

All those who are here in Colombia are César.

He is a necessary figure, because when we enter, it is not the same to crush

leadership of the academy of command that is already in Venezuela.

I, Lieutenant Colonel, who is a major general, if you understand me.

We have a problem that we have to solve. What is the problem?

The problem with the name and the order.

But you have to find a way to make it visible.

I don't know.

I don't know. The

leaders of the Venezuelan opposition

were worried and assumed that

Clíber Alcalá could stay in power once...

I'm a man of my word.

And if I say I'm going to fucking invade a country, that's typically what I do.

We realized we would have to fund it ourselves.

And so that's what we did.

All I needed was 1 .5 million.

I went and pitched some of the video that I had taken with the boys at the

in Colombia.

I did absolutely raise money with that footage and it worked.

I raised anywhere from 400 to half a million.

The Colombians and the Americans, if they don't like you, that's fine. Then

just say, okay, well.

Yeah, General Caesar has nothing to do with it. And then when we cross the

after that, who gives a shit? Then of course you have everything to do with

and we're going to create a narrative of you being a patriot, a hero, and you

doing all this, because that's what you're doing. You're the main component

this entire plan.

I had the military in place.

I had all the right people in place.

All we needed to do was coordinate and catalyze.

But I need help.

I must have asked over 50 Green Berets, Navy SEALs, Air Force PJs, everybody

through the special operations community who is retired, still wearing their

tough guy t -shirts, on, you know, fucking YouTube with all the guns and

telling everybody how to be a badass, spending all day killing paper.

And two motherfuckers said, yeah, we'll do this.

In January of 2020, my brother Luke, he shared with me that he was in Colombia.

And I said, what the heck are you doing in Colombia?

And he alluded to doing some kind of mission there.

I had immediately gotten concerned that some idiot friend had talked him into

doing contract work.

He said, don't worry, this is a U .S. mission. It's approved by the U .S.

government. We're working with the rightful recognized president of

train Venezuelans.

Aaron Barry and Luke Denman are two of the bravest men I've ever known in my

life. These guys both served with me in special forces.

Luke was with me in Iraq.

He's always been, you know, I jokingly call him Captain America, patriotic to a

fault. Western democracy is the way to go. Tyrants are evil.

He saw September 11th and terrorism and was passionate about bringing justice to

the world. And as he went through the military, he found that he had a talent

for that kind of work. Our family has been represented in every conflict the

United States has been in since the Revolutionary War.

Luke Denman's an incredible shot, incredible soldier.

And likewise, Aaron Berry.

Aaron and I have been through a lot together.

We were in Israel together for probably six months. I was his cell leader or his

team leader.

For both Luke and Aaron, when they start serving as special forces guys, Jordan

was higher rank. He was senior. He knew how things worked, and everybody looked

up to him.

He's one of the fastest shots. He has all the things that these guys admire.

It's hard to describe the level of trust that they had in Jordan.

Everybody's seen these serious band of brothers, and people understand the

in combat.

You've got to understand it's even more tight when it's a small unit, these six

-man teams where everybody has a very specific job, and if anybody fails at

job, everybody dies.

So you are trusting these people with your life day in and day out for years.

What Luke has said on that is that they absolutely trusted Jordan with their

lives, and that trust was misplaced.

There had been camps set up with training going on, so Luke and Aaron

into this thing a little late in the game.

Jordan, when he approached Luke, described the plight of the Venezuelans

that there's this U .S.-backed operation that fits exactly what they've done in

special forces in the past, training forces to overthrow a tyrant and take

Venezuela for Juan Guaido, the lawful president.

My two boys, they didn't even hesitate.

No hesitation. They said, Jordan, fuck it, let's go.

I'll follow you anywhere.

It's my impression of Jordan that he was absolutely playing on Luke's ideals and

duty and patriotism in order to pull him into Operation Gideon. They did it

because they saw what I saw in the mission set, which was the most

mission set and the mission set they've trained for since they were in special

operations.

Jordan made absolutely direct statements, not alluded to, not hinted

that he was in direct contact with people within the Trump administration,

this was a U .S.-backed mission.

Yeah, I mean, Luke and Aaron would have shared in the profits had this been

successful, but that's not really why they did it.

Jordan saying that Luke and Aaron weren't doing it for the money is

of the few things that I agree with that Jordan has ever said.

And to this day, they couldn't give you a dollar figure on how much they were

going to get paid anyways.

There's no signed contracts anywhere.

for Luke and Aaron. They openly state they just trusted Jordan.

I was heading from Miami in a boat to link up with our teams by the border of

Colombia, Venezuela.

My boat had twin diesels and it was a civilian model.

It gave us more flexibility and deniability if we were compromised.

My guys down south, they had already moved forward on land with the

rebels into that sector that was a cartel -heavy sector.

This was the plan.

Three boats meet at sea.

We would have made a link up in international waters.

I would have hopped onto one of the other boats.

The point was to slip in undetected. The idea was not to shoot it out with the

Venezuelan military.

The two main body boats would have proceeded to the Venezuelan drop -off

and made landfall.

Several elements in Venezuela were waiting to be activated.

Once activated, it would have been like a bunch of dominoes falling in place.

I needed Alcala there so that he could command the respect of not only his

troops. that were on the border, but the troops inside Venezuela.

They would have assumed that because there were Americans, that we were

by the U .S. government, that the Americans are here.

And then the objective was a satellite tower, a broadcasting network. We would

have broadcasted victories from all of the people liberating different cities

and whatnot in Venezuela.

It kind of reminds me of Operation Valkyrie in Germany in World War II,

some patriots tried to assassinate Hitler.

But remember, this is a military operation.

Nothing ever goes according to plan.

You've seen photos of the weapon?

Sure. Did those look like the guns from Florida?

I think an AR -15 looks like an AR -15.

Could they have been? Yeah, sure.

But they could have been guns from anybody's collection, right? So could

have been mine? Sure, because I had AR -15s.

Here's the bottom line. We didn't ship any weapons.

In retrospect,

That would have been the best time to cancel everything.

They put my face on Venezuelan news.

Lou Canarian absolutely had no knowledge of that, that Venezuela television had

aired that this thing was going on and that, you know, they named Lou Canarian

by name.

His name was on TV, every freaking detail.

The contract was on TV.

Once it was done, it was done. And so I

had to assess.

Damage control. I had to take a hard look and say, listen, what pieces of

information does the enemy have?

So in war, the enemy typically knows the troop strength. They know what I'm

going to do. They know how many people I have.

But as long as they don't know where I'm going to do it and when I'm going to do

it, I still have the element of surprise.

Really? I've pulled hundreds of special operations missions.

And most of the time, the enemy knows.

They'll have my face when I was in Afghanistan.

I had a wanted poster.

So it's easy to say, well, it was obvious that it was compromised, but I

evidence of that.

There was plenty of evidence of a hard compromise on this.

This person was on a suicide mission.

I was on our final stretch. Coming from Jamaica, guys were staging, preparing to

make movement.

Today I'm here to talk about the former Maduro regime and drug trafficking.

Nicolas Maduro and his co -defendants alleges a conspiracy involving

an extremely violent terrorist organization known as the Revolutionary

Forces of Colombia, FARC.

and an effort to flood the United States with cocaine.

President Guaido came to the United States. There were some conversations

about other paths.

The U .S. government has announced a $15 million reward for information leading

to the arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

After that visit, the wars over the heads of Maduro and other public

Cleaver Alcalá is a former Venezuelan general who operated near the Colombian

border as an intermediary between the FARC and the cartel.

Programa de radio.

I called Keith Schiller, nothing.

I called Drew Horn.

I said, listen, there's Americans in trouble.

These charges carry with them a mandatory minimum sentence of 50 years

and a maximum sentence of life.

That was unbelievable.

Un -fucking -believable, man.

Todo amor.

Que sepan que voy a estar haciendo lo que siempre he hecho en la vida.

Mi vida militar y mi vida de soldado.

At that point, it was incredibly confusing.

I had U .S. government support, or so I thought, and yet they removed my

strongest ally.

Clíber Alcalá continued to advance in the operation.

They had informed me that in some way they were going to get me out of the

It was the most arduous way. The internal government And even Juan

specifically, denied having signed the contract.

Also, JJ Rendón said it was a lie.

We haven't signed any documents.

There are many interesting factors in what is the art of war that were at a

disadvantage so that Jordan Goudreau could direct that operation.

So, when Clíber Alcalá is taken to the United States, The task force died

There was no successor.

The political elements in the country achieved their objectives of

preventing the military action that was being prepared with their knowledge.

Liberal Alcalá, that was supposed leader of the thing, extradited to the United

States right away.

So if there is any indicator, why?

Nothing is going to happen.

When the general was arrested, I decided to stop the operation.

It was this terrible circumstance of one thing after another going wrong

that changed my mission.

I'm in international waters, and I'm committed.

My guys are in Colombia, and I'm going to take the boat.

I'm getting my guys the fuck out of there right now.

But that didn't work out.

Because the boat engine died.

I spent three days adrift at sea.

Finally, I get picked up.

I landed in Louisiana.

I rented a car and I headed back to Florida.

One of the questions I want to answer to is, how are these guys going in and

you're not even there, you're in Florida?

My options were really limited because of coronavirus.

Travel at that point had shut down.

My guys down south were still committed to fulfilling the operation.

My man told me, listen, we don't need to head back. We want to go forward and

knock this thing out. We're not leaving these guys.

And I had my reservations, but I said it was okay.

As far as Jordan expressing skepticism about the success of the operation

and then Luke and Aaron insisting on it going forward, this is a direct quote

from Luke, is that that is complete and utter bullshit.

Jordan, over satellite phone, was telling them every step of the way, go

forward. There's men and material waiting for you in Venezuela.

Go to Venezuela and catch up with these 4 ,000 military and police that are

ready to go.

When I looked at it as a strategist, and at this point I'm just a strategist,

whether Luke and Aaron went through with the operation or if they went through

Colombia, it was two bad decisions.

In combat, the emphasis is on decisiveness.

If you have to make a decision and it's bad, that's fine. Just make a fucking

decision.

Talking to Luke, he agreed there was no good options at the time.

And it sounds like they were under some level of threat there in Colombia as

well.

When everything started to go badly, the Colombian partners that I had got

nervous, very nervous. And there were teams that were sent out by the

military.

to find everybody.

The ELN, the socialist thing that works in the area and the drug cartels, those

things suddenly became threatening.

Once that was relayed to the ELN, Luke and Aaron were in grave danger.

So they could have either tried to sneak through Colombia as gringos or they had

a shot at actually moving forward and conducting an operation in a big sea

all they really had to do is touch the ground and link up with Venezuelan

generals. They were to show an American faith.

They were there to show that this is the catalyst. And to be perfectly honest,

it was supposed to be me, not Luke and Aaron.

I was supposed to be the one there.

He escaped the punishment that we initially had, Mr.

Jordanillo.

I had satellite communication between Luke and Aaron.

And they essentially said, hey, listen, our lead boat was compromised.

And we are escaping, evading.

They get word.

that the first boat has been killed. Everybody in it's killed, captured.

When I learned my guys

were on the run, I essentially started calling news outlets and trying to

redirect Venezuelan forces to different areas of the country. Anything to throw

off the regime.

And so I made a video.

At 1700 hours, a daring amphibious raid was launched from the border of Colombia

deep into the heart of Caracas. Our men are continuing to fight right now. Our

units have been activated in the south, west, and east of Venezuela.

And essentially, we made the video to divert forces. I needed to divert

Venezuelan troops away from my guys.

Miembros de las Fuerzas Armadas, generales, comandantes, capitanes,

superiores, que por favor se unan a esta gesta libertaria, Operación Gedeón.

My guys were supposed to infill during hours of limited visibility.

That didn't happen. So the journey took longer than they thought.

Esa operación debió haberse ejecutado en 16 horas y terminó 72 horas.

They change plans. They're no longer trying to go to Venezuela. They are now

trying to make it to Aruba.

Okay, roger that. That's a good copy.

How much gas do you have?

Not a lot.

I told Luke and Aaron, I said, listen, I need you guys to take a photo right

fucking now.

What do we need?

Pictures?

Yes, just a photo or a video of your current situation.

The last thing I wanted was for them to get killed.

I needed the regime to know that they were American citizens.

I needed their face plastered in the media so that they wouldn't kill them

they seen them. Again, I apologize.

I'm trying to win the information war.

We're trying to gain a lot of support and we're getting a lot of support.

We just have to keep pushing hard today.

Stay alert, stay alive.

Anything else for me?

Negative.

Okay, stay safe, Skywalker 1, Yankee 1 out.

Yeah, I tweeted out of frustration and I sent it to Donald Trump.

And it was basically a cry for help.

Maduro's men knew exactly where they were and when every step of the way.

The only way a helicopter is going to find a fishing boat out in the middle of

the ocean is if somebody's telling them where to go look for it.

Our means of info was covert. We were compromised.

And because we were compromised, the mission failed.

I can tell you that it was a pretty...

gut -wrenching morning.

And I was like, okay, I need to talk to my parents now before anybody else does.

That was one of the hardest conversations I've had with anybody.

As I'm following all these Twitter feeds, I finally come across a photo of

what's going on there. And it's a photo of a pickup truck with a bunch of body

bags in the back.

And I'm looking at those body bags and like that lump of a human inside that

right now could be my brother.

And finally, there's a photo of a bunch of men lined up with their faces down,

and I notice a tattoo.

That's him right there. I'm just glad he's alive.

Eight of my men were killed.

Everybody else is in captivity. Some of them are still hiding, and some of them

are underground.

Venezuelan security forces continue combing the countryside, arresting more

alleged conspirators from Sunday's ill -fated armed incursion.

All of them have now been charged with terrorism, conspiracy, weapons

trafficking, and more.

Two Americans were sentenced to 20 years in prison in Venezuela for an apparent

botched mission to overthrow that country's president.

They were stripped down and had hoods over their head.

subjected to sleep deprivation and no food and then random beatings, and that

goes on for days. Both of them described having a sharp blade dragged across

their body and saying they would gut them unless they cooperated.

Jordan, through Silver Corps, private security contracting, known in some

as mercenary work.

I believe that it is right to request the

extradition, according to the extradition agreement between the United

and Venezuela, of Mr.

Jordan Grodot, who has confessed his crimes against the legality and peace

and sovereignty of Venezuela.

A $200 million contract that supposedly the opposition leader, Juan Guaido,

signed with Mr. Goudreau. This plot could long -term implicate not only the

.S. government, also the opposition in Venezuela.

It also allows them plausible deniability. It has echoes of a bay of

op operations that were done in Latin America during the 1970s, 80s, and 90s.

Jordan Goudreau is under investigation for potential arms trafficking

violations. Jordan Goudreau. The fact that he went ahead with this fucking

amphibious assault. What the fuck is going on? A freedom -loving patriot, a

mercenary, and a gifted warrior scarred by battle and in way over his head.

I'd say that there's three entities that are responsible for this botched

operation.

On the forefront of this would be Jordan Goudreau.

What he could do is fall on the sword.

Luke and Aaron's capture and the defeat of the mission, that's my failure.

I carry a tremendous sense of shame because it's my responsibility.

It's my operation.

Right behind Jordan would be Juan Guaido. It's hard to see Guaido as much

than a sort of puppet opposition, which the U .S. has been able to use for

political purposes and overarching.

is appointed officials in the United States government serving under Trump.

Career folks, guys like John Bolton. 5 ,000 troops to Colombia scrawled in

view on the notepad of White House National Security Advisor John Bolton.

Military action is possible if that's what's required.

Mike Pompeo said the United States government had no direct involvement.

There was no U .S. government direct involvement.

And then later, the U .S. government had no involvement in Operation Gideon. The

Trump administration is denying any involvement.

No, I know nothing about it. The government has nothing to do with it at

we'd have been involved, it would have gone differently.

They're going to fucking gut me like a fucking trout.

Fuck!

We

had

set up in a meeting with the FBI.

And so when they raided me, I decided I would just...

Get whatever I had and leave.

I got on my bike, headed south to Mexico, tried to beat the surveillance

was on me, used my trade crap, used the fact that it was coronavirus to hide my

face with a mask, blended in, used cryptocurrency to cover my financial

and laid low in Mexico.

Jordan Goudreau, he's disappeared.

Goudreau's whereabouts are currently unknown.

The U .S. government was complicit in this. They worked with Guido's people to

fucking do this, man. The country I fought for my whole life was just, it's

a crock of shit.

They are accusing now the general of conspiring with Maduro against America.

The general is probably the most honorable guy I've ever met.

Period. The government was given some bad information by J .J. Rendon.

Joe has not given me an account of $104 million that he managed in 2020.

How much money?

$104 million.

You're trying to co -operate something to justify why they took it.

It's a really good thing that the case is just weak. There is nothing to

the fact that he's here right now.

And the general, he wants you to know that you're a hero for him.

They can't release your head.

You can't release people that went to your country intended to overturn it.

I spent my whole life fighting for this fucking country, Iraq and Afghanistan.

What's up, Mom?

Front and center, soldier.

Not much, not much.

Dad was in World War I, you know. Yeah, I know.

He trained the troops for World War II.

They're fucking, they already took everything they could from me, man.

I got, I left the army with my mind destroyed. And this was the round two of

You know what I'm saying?

Yeah, George, just stay on the right side of the law.

Well, if it takes, I'm going to be honest with you. If me getting my guys

means I have to break the law, then I'll break the law. I don't care. Like, I,

you know, I tried to trade myself.

for them. I said, Hey, I told Maduro, like I sent the message to Maduro. I was

like, I will trade me for my guys.

Yeah.

Just stay on the right side of yourself.

Thanks for having my back always, man. No matter what I really like without you

guys, I'm nothing, man. I'm nothing.

Luke and Aaron have been in there for 11 months.

One of those guys were in fucking jail. I can't, man.

It's like a fucking knife in my heart.

Whenever

I'm

on mission, shave my head, shave my face.

And it's the technique I've always used.

It just reminds me I have a mission.

You know, I'm a man of war.

And I will grind whatever grit the mill fucking requires.

Jordan stayed in contact with us for some time the last time I spoke to

He's asking how my cardio is, and he's got a plan, like we're going to run on

some mission and blow a hole in the wall and pull the guys out and some cowboy

stuff. I mean, this is what he's hinting at.

And all of a sudden, there's just no more contact because it's pretty obvious

he's not actually doing anything to help, right?

That's what it is.

came across as.

Fort Bragg, I mean, it's the only home I've ever really had since I left my

parents' house in Calgary.

Whenever I deployed, they say, you're going home.

And I would always come home to the base.

And it's home.

It was a tough year.

I'm not going to lie.

I mean, I'm human.

It brought me back to when I first left the military. It was like I was alone

again.

On the last deployment that I had, I had a lot of memory loss.

Huge pieces of my memory. They were just gone.

Like I'm not the normal guy who I used to be.

And so I go to the TBI clinic.

The neurologist says to me, Sergeant First Class Goudreau, I've reviewed your

MRIs.

They diagnosed me with traumatic brain injury and PTSD because I guess they go

hand in hand.

And he said, we're going to medically retire you.

I said, you just fucked up.

And he said, what are you talking about?

And I said, yeah, you just fucked up, man.

And he said, why? I said, because you put me between you and the fucking door

and there's a window behind you. And I said, if you write that report, I'm

to throw you at that fucking window.

And they basically put together an intervention that convinced me to hang

But I never really felt like I had PTSD because I didn't exhibit the same

symptoms as most of the other guys.

I was always comfortable in war zones.

My PTSD would really stem from being back in the civilian world.

There are some dudes who get caught in that, you know, and it is fucking

devastating.

I've lost more friends to suicide than I have in the wars, in both

Afghanistan and Iraq combined.

I think it's an indicator of how much they were up against and how desperate

and desolate their lives became after the military, after the army.

And when he left the army, it was like he no longer had a

home.

I couldn't hang up my guns, man. I just couldn't put it away.

You know, if I did that, it would have killed me. You can't separate me from

soldier. It's impossible.

There would be nothing to be left.

And so that didn't work so well.

There will always be something somewhere, somehow, that Jordan will

is the guy to be handling it and solving that problem.

Yeah, I think Jordan will always be a soldier.

The Army pumps millions of dollars into your training. You're leaping tall

buildings with a single bound, chasing terrorists across rooftops, keeling in

objectives. You're jumping out of planes. You're doing all these

things. And then one day they say, oh, that's it.

Like, it doesn't work that way, man.

I was like a hammer that was, like, broken in half. It was just no longer of

use.

So you dispose of it, you know.

And maybe that's what the army doesn't do so good is they don't take the broken

tools and fix them.

When I was in the army and I was doing what I was good at, there's always a

purpose.

Ernest Hemingway said, those who go to war and those who hunt men and like it

rarely find anything else worth doing.

War is the ultimate crucible.

It shows you who you are.

You transition from that high -speed mentality into civilian life, it can be

very dangerous.

I'm terrified of stopping.

I try just to keep moving.

I try just to keep moving.

Part of me wishes I was killed in combat because, yeah,

it would have been easier.

What I was so good at, what I was the best at, I could no longer do.

I didn't know. I didn't have a goal.

That's what was wrong with me. I didn't have a goal.

That's why getting the army was so hard, because I had to redefine.

What the hell is my goal now?

What I was mostly concerned about Jordan about this was that he had

ideas about trying to help, and he got stepped on real hard.

I don't know whether he was going to learn a lesson from that or not, and he

might get involved again, and that's what worried me mostly.

The U .S. government is basically

saying we have no responsibility to these guys. They're just some crazy

that ran off to Venezuela in their flip -flops and shorts and thought they were

going to take over the country.

What I do know is there's D .C. politicians sitting around comfortable

suits and ties doing nothing to bring these guys home. And I think...

It was a big shock to Luke's system to see how quickly and completely the US is

prepared to abandon them.

I learned that this government is not worth fighting for.

I learned that people are worth fighting for.

And if there are people who are oppressed, send me.

I'll fucking fight and die, man.

I hate to say that, you know, but...

Fucking violence solves problems.

Change happens through men with guns.

It's bad, but hey man, I guess it gives me good job security at least.

Sorry. What happened?

Nothing. I'm good.

No, what happened?

I'm okay, man.

What's the matter? Fucking taps, man. Fucking taps, bro.

Taps breaks me down, dude.

Let me just clear my shit, dude.

Give me a minute, man.

You did the work and took the blame

Winning the battle,

losing the war What did I gain?

This is how, how we try

Ten Americans who've spent months and years imprisoned in Venezuela are now

in the United States.