Senator Markwayne Mullin bought stock in leading defense and oil companies just five days before Trump ordered the kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro and his wife
Mullin follows in the footsteps of his predecessor, James Inhofe, who bought Raytheon stock and profited from illegal wars of aggression that he championed
Senator Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) has cultivated an image as a Rambo-type hero, which was burnished in August 2021 when he took an unauthorized trip to Afghanistan to try to help rescue people fleeing the Taliban after they returned to power in Afghanistan.
A former mixed martial arts fighter and wrestler who champions the Trump administration’s trillion-dollar-plus military budget, Mullin is a super-hawk sitting on the Senate Armed Services Committee who criticized President Joe Biden for supposedly “appeasing” countries like Iran.
In 2022, Mullin introduced a bill in Congress that would allow U.S. citizens to volunteer to fight Russia on behalf of Ukraine, claiming that thousands of Americans were ready to fight communism. (Lacking even a bachelor’s degree, Mullin does not seem to realize that Russia under Vladimir Putin is not a communist country.)[1]
While Mullin may genuinely subscribe to reactionary political views,[2] his opportunism was disclosed in an article in The Oklahoman in late January, which revealed that he had bought Chevron and RTX (formerly Raytheon) stock just days before U.S. forces captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in an illegal Special Forces raid, Operation Absolute Resolve.
A spokesperson for Mullin told The Oklahoman that the purchases were made without Mullin’s input by a firm that manages his stock trading. This excuse seems to be disingenuous since Mullin had to have green-lighted the stock trades and did not demand their cancelation or say that he sold back the RTX and Chevron stock shares after they were disclosed.
In an online analysis for Capitol Trades, Turra Rasheed noted that Mullin made the RTX stock purchase on December 29, just five days before Operation Absolute Resolve and twelve days after President Donald Trump ordered a blockade of sanctioned Venezuelan oil tankers, which signaled a sharp escalation in policy and threat of war.
Voting against a Senate resolution invoking the War Powers Act that aimed to block the possibility of further military action in Venezuela, Mullin called Operation Absolute Resolve an “outstanding coordinated effort from the intelligence community and our men and women in uniform” that “only the United States and President Trump could have pulled off,” adding that Maduro was an “illegitimate president” who was “holding Venezuela hostage.”
On his website, Mullin argues for a policy of “peace through strength to deter adversaries like Communist China and protect the homeland.” Mullin states that as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, he is “committed to supporting Oklahoma’s five world-class military installations to ensure they have the resources they need to protect and defend our nation.”
Mullin leaves out how he stands to profit personally from these commitments and the policy of “peace through strength” through his investments in weapons and oil companies that are enriched by U.S. military interventions.[3]
It just so happens that the U.S. Navy purchased 873 RTX Tomahawk missiles which were placed on U.S. warships that surrounded Venezuela during Operation Absolute Resolve, and that Chevron was the only U.S. oil company operating in Venezuela prior to Maduro’s kidnapping and the only U.S. company with U.S. government authorization to export oil from there.
Journalist Lois Parshley wrote that Chevron was “uniquely positioned in the aftermath of the [Venezuelan] invasion: its leadership and board have long orbited Republican circles, with deep ties to the Trump administration and a history of big GOP donations.”[4]
These donations presumably include ones to Mullin, who, according to opensecrets.com, took in $482,516 in donations from the oil and gas industry in 2023-2024.[5]
In the first two weeks after Mullin’s stock purchases, Chevron’s share price rose by 10.1% and RTX’s by about 9.5%. The value of his stock purchases was said to be between $15,000 and $50,000 for each company, meaning that Mullin made a lot of money from the deals—adding to a net worth that was previously estimated to be between $31.6 million and $75.6 million.[6]
Following in James Inhofe’s Footsteps
Mullin’s brazen war-profiteering follows in the footsteps of his predecessor, James Inhofe, another big-time war hawk who served on the Senate Armed Services Committee for more than a quarter century and had the $850 billion 2023 defense budget named after him.
In 2018, Senator Inhofe was found to have purchased tens of thousands of dollars in Raytheon stock just a week after he lobbied the Trump administration to increase military spending to then-record levels.
Like Mullin, Inhofe made the same excuse: that it was his stockbroker who made the deal and that he was unaware of it.
At the time of the stock deal, Raytheon was supplying the Saudi military with laser-guided bombs and other weapons that were being used to carry out genocide in Yemen—with U.S. backing. Raytheon’s stock increased from $108 per share in 2015 to $180 per share in 2019, due in part to the profits accrued from the Saudi arms sales.
Inhofe was at the time championing billion-dollar U.S. weapons supplies to Saudi Arabia as Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and spoke out forcefully to block measures to halt those sales from which he directly profited, and to ensure that restrictive measures aimed at curbing Saudi arms sales were left out of the final versions of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).
Oklahoma No Anomaly
While it is easy to mock Oklahoma as a backward state, what is going on there is, unfortunately, not an anomaly.
According to a report in Responsible Statecraft written by Nick Cleveland-Stout, at least 37 members of Congress and their families traded defense stocks in 2024, totaling between $24 million and $113 million.
Eight of the 37 congressmembers held positions on the Armed Services and Foreign Affairs Committees, the committees that oversee defense policy and foreign relations.
As members of those committees, they would have been privy to intelligence briefings that could help them predict future stock prices.
According to Cleveland-Stout, the top defense stock trader was Josh Gottheimer, a New Jersey Democrat who traded at least $22 million worth of stock of top 100 Pentagon contractors, including Northrop Grumman, IBM and Microsoft, which received $414 million from the Pentagon in 2023 for software and cloud computing services.
Gottheimer held positions on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the National Security Subcommittee of the House Committee on Financial Services. When his actions were exposed, he gave the same excuse as Mullin and Inhofe, telling MSNBC that his stock trades were made by a third-party financial firm and that he had “literally no idea what they do.”
The second most active defense stock trader, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), bought Microsoft call options less than two weeks before the U.S. Army announced a $22 billion contract with the software company to supply augmented reality headsets.[7]
Another blatant conflict of interest was seen with Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), the seventh most active stock trader who participated in a Senate Armed Services committee hearing on military innovation, headlined by Lockheed CEO James Taiclet, when he owned $50,000 in Lockheed stock.
Cleveland-Stout’s report concluded by endorsing the Ending Trading and Holdings in Congressional Stocks Act, or ETHICS Act, which would prohibit members of Congress from trading individual stocks.
Senator Jon Ossoff (D-GA), the author of the bill, was quoted stating that “lawmakers like me, we’re kind of like umpires in a baseball game, we call balls and strikes. And you definitely don’t let umpires bet on the outcome of the game.”
These comments are certainly true, though Ossoff might have added that the game being played is a particularly deadly one—especially for eastern Ukrainians, Gazans, Syrians, Libyans, Venezuelans and other people around the world on the wrong end of the guns.
Of Cherokee heritage, Mullin served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2013 to 2023 and has served in the U.S. Senate since then. He was the owner of Mullin Plumbing, a company which he inherited from his father, and host of a syndicated radio program across the state of Oklahoma. He attended Missouri Valley College in 1996 but did not graduate. In 2010, Mullin received an associate degree in construction technology from Oklahoma State University Institute of Technology. ↑
Mullin holds an anemic 15% lifetime rating from the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) because of his support for anti-labor legislation and favoring corporate elites and the 1% who put him in Washington. ↑
Just hours after the U.S. attack, Donald Trump stated that Venezuela’s future “belonged to very large U.S. oil companies” which would soon be pumping a “tremendous amount of wealth out of the ground.” Those large U.S. companies clearly include Chevron. ↑
The New York Times reported that Chevron was “in prime position to benefit after U.S. forces captured President Nicolás Maduro…and ramped up pressure on the country to welcome greater investment from U.S. energy businesses….As the only Western oil company with U.S. government authorization to export oil from Venezuela, it is positioned, given the right political conditions, to increase production more quickly than companies that have no presence in the country.” ↑
Mullin also took in $89,000 from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, during that time. ↑
Mullin’s conflict of interest in his purchase of Chevron stock stems not only from his service on the Senate Armed Services Committee, but also on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, which influences energy policy and environmental regulation. ↑
In 2024, Responsible Statecraft reported that Pelosi netted an estimated $38.6 million from her stock-trading activity. ↑
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Jeremy Kuzmarov holds a Ph.D. in American history from Brandeis University and has taught at numerous colleges across the United States. He is regularly sought out as an expert on U.S. history and politics for radio and TV programs and co-hosts a radio show on New York Public Radio and on Progressive Radio News Network called “Uncontrolled Opposition.”
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Mullin isn’t only one in government who benefitted from foreknowledge of Venezuelan incursion, Maduro kidnap, and resource theft by investing in defense and oil companies just days prior. How many more lives of people in foreign lands will be lost to further enrich US politicians
Epstein, quei legami russi del finanziere e le donne usate come trappole. L’ombra di manovre dei Servizi segreti
di Luigi Ippolito
L’eredità del padre di Ghislaine e la rete per ricattare gli amici potenti
DAL NOSTRO CORRISPONDENTE
LONDRA – Molto più che una combriccola di ricchi assatanati a caccia di giovani schiave sessuali: la rete di relazioni costruita da Jeffrey Epstein si colora sempre più come una delle più sofisticate operazioni di spionaggio degli ultimi decenni, una macchinazione che ha condotto a vette mai raggiunte la collaudata arte russa del «kompromat», ossia mettere persone-chiave in situazioni compromettenti per poi tenerle in pugno.
Come hanno sottolineato fonti di intelligence al Mail on Sunday, appare sempre più evidente come il magnate pedofilo americano avesse messo su «la più ampia operazione di “trappola al miele” del mondo» per conto del Kgb: Epstein dunque avrebbe procurato ragazze ai potenti del mondo per conto dei servizi segreti russi, e magari anche israeliani, in modo che fossero ricattabili.
Il padre di Ghislaine
Tutto risale all’amicizia di Epstein con Robert Maxwell, il magnate dei media britannici morto misteriosamente nel 1991, apparentemente per una caduta dal suo yacht alla quale nessuno ha mai creduto veramente. Maxwell era d’origine un ebreo cecoslovacco che si ritiene avesse lavorato per il Kgb così come per il Mossad, fin da quando negli anni Settanta aveva facilitato l’emigrazione degli ebrei sovietici in Israele: a presentarlo a Epstein fu un magnate del petrolio russo, anche lui a libro paga dei servizi del Cremlino. E Maxwell, con l’aiuto di Epstein, riciclava i fondi di Mosca in Occidente.
Non a caso, subito dopo la morte di Maxwell, a fianco del finanziere americano compare Ghislaine, la figlia del barone dei media, che ne diventa la complice e amante. Maxwell aveva sottratto tutti i fondi pensione dei suoi giornali e quei soldi non sono mai stati ritrovati: da più parti si ritiene che siano stati riciclati proprio da Epstein e che la gestione di quel tesoro sia il filo che univa il magnate americano a Ghislaine.
Come Maxwell, Epstein è morto misteriosamente in carcere nel 2019, apparentemente suicida, mentre Ghislaine sta scontando negli Usa una condanna a vent’anni per prostituzione minorile e sta trattando su eventuali rivelazioni.
Amicizie moscovite
Nei file appena resi pubblici, ci sono 9.629 riferimenti alla Russia e 1.056 menzioni di Vladimir Putin: risulta che Epstein abbia incontrato il dittatore russo in più occasioni, anche dopo la sua prima condanna per reati sessuali. E il finanziere si vanta nei messaggi di poter fornire informazioni al Cremlino su Donald Trump, tramite incontri con l’ambasciatore russo a New York e lo stesso ministro degli Esteri Serghej Lavrov. Si tratta di scambi di email avvenuti alla vigilia del summit del 2018 fra Trump e Putin, alla fine del quale il presidente americano sostenne di non avere prove di interferenze russe nella sua elezione.
Epstein risulta anche legato a Masha Drokova, ex leader del movimento giovanile putiniano, diventata poi una donna d’affari basata a San Francisco: ma le fonti di intelligence ritengono che la sua azienda, Day One Ventures, fosse stata messa su per rubare segreti tecnologici. La stessa Drokova era stata approcciata dall’Fbi e aveva subito sviato il discorso su Epstein.
Un libro pubblicato nel 2021 dal giornalista investigativo Craig Unger sostiene che fu proprio Epstein a fare da tramite fra Trump e la cerchia di Putin e che il magnate americano faceva ricorso alla criminalità russa per fornire giovani ragazze ai suoi amici potenti, a partire dal futuro presidente americano.
A Londra
Non stupisce dunque come in una email Epstein prometta all’allora principe Andrea una «bellissima e fidata» russa 26enne. Il biografo di Andrea, Andrew Lownie, ha appurato come giovani donne provenienti da Mosca venissero portate direttamente al principe nelle sue residenze in Inghilterra per il weekend, per poi essere riaccompagnate direttamente in aeroporto. Lownie è convinto che il Cremlino sia in possesso di un copioso dossier su Andrea, probabilmente corredato anche da immagini, con cui ricattare la famiglia reale e di conseguenza la Gran Bretagna.
Quanto a Londra, i documenti rivelati mostrano anche pagamenti per 75 mila dollari da Epstein a Lord Mandelson, l’ex ambasciatore britannico negli Usa costretto alle dimissioni lo scorso novembre per i suoi legami col finanziere. Mandelson, soprannominato il «principe delle tenebre», era stato uno degli architetti del New Labour e il più stretto consigliere di Tony Blair.
Altri documenti pubblicati mostrano come l’Fbi fosse convinto che Epstein fosse una spia del Mossad, addestrato da Ehud Barak, l’ex primo ministro israeliano, col quale scambiava continuamente messaggi. Insomma, un intreccio di ombre che allunga un’aura molto più inquietante sulle perversioni di un gruppo di potenti.