'Missed opportunity': Senate Foreign Relations Committee head condemns Venezuela's regime for appointing former Chavista official as attorney general

Republican Senator Jim Risch, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, condemned on Monday the appointment of controversial attorney Larry Devoe as attorney general of Venezuela, calling it "a missed opportunity to empower independent voices over former Maduro regime insiders."

From the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's 'X' account, Risch warned that "The Venezuelan interim authorities must begin to take irreversible steps toward a transition that ensures stability and economic recovery."

The message to the regime from Delcy Rodriguez, Venezuela's interim leader, comes from a senator very close to the Trump administration, personally endorsed by the president for re-election in 2026. Moreover, he shares a 16-year working relationship and a nearly identical foreign policy vision with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, with Risch himself presiding over Rubio's unanimous confirmation as Secretary of State in January 2025.

His alarm signal on Venezuela, in that context, looks like a signal from the Senate that could well be aligned with the stance of the Trump administration itself, which in recent weeks has tutored Delcy Rodriguez's work at the helm of the country following Maduro's capture.

Devoe's profile and doubts about transition

The Venezuelan National Assembly, controlled by Chavismo, confirmed Devoe on April 9 with 275 votes, after a process in which more than 70 candidates were evaluated. The weak opposition bench, accused by critics of legitimizing an assembly hand-built by Chavismo, proposed the academic Magaly Vásquez, who received only 10 votes. Devoe, 46 years old, is a political operator with a long trajectory in the Chavista regime: he was head of the National Human Rights Council; held positions in the Ombudsman's Office, the National Telecommunications Commission, and the restructuring board of the National Superintendence of Crypto-assets; and served as interim prosecutor after the resignation of Tarek William Saab in February. Venezuelan analysts consulted by VOZ warned that his appointment, together with that of the new Ombudsman, Eglée González, reflects the logic of Delcy Rodríguez's regime to consolidate its control and power over institutions, rather than opening them to independent voices.

The appointments, analysts said, do not seem to be in tune with Washington's objectives of achieving an institutional transition in Venezuela. Two weeks ago, at the end of March, Rubio himself had advanced that the political transition in Venezuela should culminate with elections, qualifying that, to do so, the right context had to be patiently created.

"Larry Devoe was an accomplice of Nicolás Maduro's system and is a token of Delcy Rodríguez's absolute trust. Appointing him as prosecutor is a victory in Delcy's plan to block a real transition and negotiate a transition from Madurismo to Rodriguismo," US-based Venezuelan political scientist Daniel Chang told VOZ.