Chavez attempted to buy Argentina election?

AFP:

A US prosecutor claimed on Monday three covert Venezuelan agents offered two million dollars to hush up an alleged attempt to funnel 800,000 dollars from Venezuela to the electoral campaign of Cristina Kirchner, who is now Argentina's president.

Kirchner earlier dismissed as "garbage" the claim that Venezuela's leftist President Hugo Chavez sought to pump funds into her presidential campaign.

That allegation was made on Friday after the Venezuelans were arrested in Miami last week and charged with failing to notify US authorities they were agents of the Venezuelan government.

The arrests followed the seizure in August of a bag with 800,000 dollars in cash found in Buenos Aires aboard a chartered flight from Caracas.

Guido Antonini, a dual US-Venezuelan national, who was carrying the suitcase, later flew back to his home in Miami, where the defendants allegedly approached him.

The three Venezuelans offered two million dollars to Antonini to conceal the origin of the money and the fact it was directed "to the presidential campaign in Argentina," said Assistant US Attorney Thomas Mulvihill.

Last week, the prosecutor said that Franklin Duran, one of the defendants, mentioned in a recorded conversation that the money was for the electoral campaign of Kirchner, who was sworn in as president on December 10.

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With the evidence on tape, it sounds like a difficult case to defend. Perhaps the defendants will turn states evidence and implicate the people they were acting as bag men for, i.e. Hugo Chavez. Alternatively, it appears that Venezuela has become so corrupt and out of control that people are throwing around government money to influence foreign elections and Hugo doe snot know about it? Either way, Chavez does not look that smart, nor do the Kirchners. Hat tip to Gateway Pundit.