U.S. officials defend deal with controversial Venezuelan oil baron (axios.com)

U.S. officials are defending their work with Venezuelan businessman Alejandro Betancourt in the unprecedented White House move to effectively gain control over huge oilfields in the country. Why it matters: Betancourt is the colorful and controversial figure who heads North American Blue Energy Partners (NABEP), the oil company partnering with the administration in the agreement that gives the U.S. preferential access to output from 17 major fields. The Pentagon's Office of Strategic Capital is taking a 35% equity stake in the company. The U.S. also has the rights to buy 20% of the oil at cost after the company pays its taxes to Venezuela. Driving the news: At a briefing with reporters Tuesday, a U.S. official talked up Betancourt as a "proven operator" in the country's oil sector that has been vetted by the administration. The official also bluntly acknowledged the realpolitik in the effort to boost output in the country, which has vast reserves but modest oil production after years of mismanagement and underinvestment. "There's a reality here, okay, and that is that not just here, but in other parts of the world, you have to deal with the dynamics sometimes that are in place in order to get to where you want to get to," the official said. "I'm being blunt: we make choices like this all over the world." "Geopolitics is often not the choice between the ideal and the imperfect. It is often, you're trying to navigate what's the best outcome, and you have to work with the factors that you have in place." In prior conversations with Axios, two other senior administration officials acknowledged the troubles Betancourt has faced, but said they were worth the risk. Catch up quick: Betancourt, 46, is the linchpin to Trump's plan to increase U.S. access to oil and strengthen its dominance in the hemisphere, which became clear after the Jan. 3 removal of Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro. His ties to the first Trump administration, anti-Maduro activity in 2019 and his help in the U.S. coup against Maduro made him the ideal partner for the administration, Axios reported . "I'm not nominating anyone for sainthood here. What I am telling you is that this is a person that, in the past, has been helpful to the United States government," the official said. And "there are no charges he's facing in the United States for violation of any of our laws." Catch up quick: In 2018, Betancourt was listed as an unnamed "conspirator" in a federal indictment of his cousin and seven others in a $1.2 billion international money-laundering scheme involving manipulated currency exchange rates between U.S. dollars and Venezuelan bolivars. Betancourt was never charged in the crimes, which largely occurred between 2014 and 2016, because his attorneys successfully argued he was unaware of the scheme. The crime involved Venezuela's state-run oil company PDVSA, properties in Miami and bank accounts in Switzerland, where authorities inexplicably revived the case last year, raided Bet