Venezuela is implicating the US Ambassador to neighboring Colombia in a plot to topple the democratically elected President Nicolas Maduro.  The government produced emails that seem to bolster its assertions that three months of anti-government protests were the vanguard of US meddling in the South American country.

“What we are presenting is part of a criminal investigation,” said Caracas Mayor Jorge Rodriguez said, showing emails sent by opposition former lawmaker Maria Corina Machado which boast of support from Kevin Whitaker.  Today, he is the US Ambassador to Colombia, but at the time the emails were sent in March, Whitaker was the head of a US State Department office on the Andean Region.

“Kevin Whitaker reconfirms his support and indicated new steps,” read the purported Machado email, which suggests the Whitaker was instructing the opposition.  “We have a stronger checkbook than the regime,” suggesting that US financial support has yet to run out.  Rodriguez charged that the US money is paying mercenaries to destabilize Venezuela.

Machado strongly rejected the charge.  “It’s a tragedy what we have seen today,” she told reporters.

Another Machado email proposed to “annihilate” President Maduro.  “We have to clean up this rubbish, starting at the top, taking advantage of the global climate provided by Ukraine and now Thailand,” read the email dated 23 May.

Machado herself is no stranger to violent coups.  She personally signed the document that tried to provide a legal basis for the 2002 coup against the democratically elected President Hugo Chavez.  He beat back the coup and returned to office to serve another 11 years, but 19 of Machado’s fellow Venezuelans were killed and more than 100 were hurt.

The Venezuelan government is now saying how it obtained the emails, only that they are part of an investigation.