US National Security Advisor John Bolton has been flooding Venezuelan Defense
Minister Vladimir Padrino with messages asking him to "do the right thing,"
playing the "Good Cop" to his own "Bad Cop."
Bolton's most recent "do the right thing" tweet implores Padrino
and the army to "protect the Constitutional order from Maduro's usurpation
of democracy" – though US special envoy Elliott Abrams admitted
earlier this month that Juan Guaido's self-appointed presidency was technically
in violation of Venezuela's constitution, until he unilaterally opted to change
it.
"Mr. Bolton, I tell you that we are doing the right thing," Padrino
responded in a televised address. "Doing the right thing is doing what's
written in the constitution... Doing the right thing is respecting the will of
the people."
Bolton has been tweeting at Padrino all week – and those are just the
messages he's sent publicly. The Venezuelan military's refusal to throw its
support behind Juan Guaido, the opposition leader turned self-appointed
US-backed "interim president," is clearly a thorn in his side.
"We call on the Venezuelan military to uphold its constitutional duty to
protect the citizens of Venezuela," Bolton tweeted in a statement in which
he also "cautioned" "actors external to the Western
Hemisphere" – i.e. Russia, mostly – to cease their "provocative
actions" lest the US be forced to "defend and protect" its
interests.
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Padrino does not seem interested in Bolton's love letters, however,
denouncing Guaido as "a self-proclaimed outlaw."
"We, the soldiers of the Motherland, do not accept the president imposed
in the shadow of dark interests," he said.