MAGA influencers are suggesting that the United States overthrew Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro in retaliation for Venezuela, via election technology companies, purportedly rigging the 2020 U.S. election against President Donald Trump — a false conspiracy theory that the president appeared to endorse following Saturday’s military strikes.

Benny Johnson, a MAGA slop artist with close ties to the Trump administration, claimed on Sunday that “Nicolás Maduro might be Trump's final revenge for the election theft of 2020.” 

“Smartmatic and Dominion Voting Systems were the voting systems being used at this time [in 2020] and in these states and all around the world,” he said. “They are Venezuelan by design and by systems, storage facilities and through their actual technology. These systems, I have on extremely good authority, can and do rig elections around the world.”

Johnson claimed to have a source who says that Maduro “told him directly that he has direct hard evidence of the election of 2020 being rigged, that he knows exactly how it was done, that they had a hand in it, but it wasn't really Venezuela running the op. It was probably more likely China. And that he is in possession of all of that evidence.” 

Smartmatic and Dominion have sued several right-wing outlets and activists that promoted conspiracy theories tying the companies to the purported 2020 election theft. Fox News, which currently faces a $2.7 billion lawsuit from Smartmatic, ultimately settled a similar suit from Dominion for a record $787.5 million in 2023; filings in the case show that Fox executives and stars privately acknowledged that the election had not been tainted by large-scale fraud, even as the network broadcast false claims tying Dominion to Venezuela and suggesting it had rigged the 2020 vote. 

But both companies may be less willing or able to defend themselves as these conspiracy theories reignite. Dominion settled several other suits against Trump allies during its October 2025 purchase by (and at the reported behest of) Liberty Vote, an election technology company helmed by a former Republican official with ties to Trump Justice Department official Ed Martin. The same month, the DOJ indicted Smartmatic for allegedly bribing a Philippines official.

Trump has repeatedly referenced the purported role Venezuela played in his yearslong derangement over the 2020 election he falsely claims was stolen from him — most recently in the early hours of Monday morning. 

Amid a stream of posts and reposts on his Truth Social platform suggesting that the 2020 election had been rigged in Nevada, Colorado, Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, the president highlighted QAnon influencer Chad Vivas’ claim that “the CIA outsources election rigging technology like Smartmatic and Dominion from Venezuela.” Vivas, known online as “KagDrogo,” suggested it was not “coincidence” that Trump had been promoting claims “about Dominion voting machine fraud” right after Maduro’s capture. 

Several right-wing accounts with large followings highlighted Trump’s posts as “confirming” a connection between the U.S. attack on Venezuela and the purportedly rigged 2020 U.S. election. 

While Fox hosts largely stayed away from conspiracy theories about election technology companies following the lawsuits, hardcore election deniers like former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne and MyPillow founder Mike Lindell remained fixated on Dominion. In the fall of 2025 — as the Trump administration escalated its pressure on Maduro, surged U.S. Navy ships into the Caribbean Sea, and destroyed boats it alleged were carrying drugs while murdering those onboard — the purported Venezuela connection took on new life.

“There’s never been as necessary a war since the Civil War, that we go down and take care of Venezuela,” Byrne told host Emerald Robinson in an October 7, 2025, appearance on her show on Lindell’s LindellTV network. “It’s more important than World War I or World War II to the viability of the United States. The U.S. was overthrown, and Venezuela’s technology was part of it.”

Allegations of a Venezuelan role in the purported theft of the 2020 U.S. election reportedly jumped from the fever swamp to the hyper-partisan Trump Justice Department. On November 21, 2025, The Guardian reported U.S. attorney for Puerto Rico Stephen Muldrow, “a staunch Republican and Trump supporter,” had been briefed on “the old voting conspiracy and the allegations that Venezuela helped rig elections worldwide” by former CIA officer Gary Berntsen (who claims to have first convinced Trumpist lawyers Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani that the 2020 election was stolen) and Venezuelan expatriate Martin Rodil.

Berntsen and author Ralph Pezzullo rehashed the allegations in an interview with far-right podcaster Lara Logan which aired that same day. And on November 23, 2025, Trump himself reposted Logan’s post about that interview, commenting, “We must focus all of our energy and might on ELECTION FRAUD!!”

With Trump himself apparently convinced by the conspiracy theory, it seems plausible that the federal government will start putting the screws to Maduro, who appeared in a New York courtroom on Monday alongside his wife to plead not guilty to charges of drug trafficking, to get him to confirm it.

Benny Johnson is already telling his viewers that Maduro will “sing like a canary” about his purported accomplices and “how they stole the election.” 

“Who will he give up?” Johnson asked Sunday. “Soros? China? Left-wing NGOs? Left-wing billionaires?”

“He'll sing,” Johnson added ominously. “He'll tell them everything. They got his wife. This is why they took him alive. I learned all this from my conversation, and it really checks out, quite frankly. It really checks out.”