President George W. Bush (left) and Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chávez. [AP=Yonhap News] 

It has been revealed that the George W. Bush administration had already conducted a close analysis of Venezuela's electronic voting manipulation system as early as 2004. 

According to a declassified summary document of the CIA's report, "2004-2020 Venezuela's Electronic Voting Manipulation Capabilities," which was released on the White House website on the 16th (local time) following an order by U.S. President Donald Trump, the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC) evaluated that the Venezuelan government's electronic voting system manipulation technology could pose a serious potential threat to U.S. national security and electoral infrastructure, and officially documented this assessment. The 43rd U.S. President, George W. Bush, served from 2001 to 2009. 

The IC is a coalition of intelligence agencies under the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), which was established in 2004 following the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act (IRTPA) enacted after the 9/11 attacks. While it comprised 15 agencies during the first Bush administration, it now includes 18 intelligence agencies as of 2026, including the CIA, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). 

"Stopping Bush's reelection is my dream"... Chávez's ambition for U.S. election interference began 20 years ago 

According to the newly released IC report, it was confirmed that after the initial assessment of Venezuela's election manipulation technology in 2004, U.S. intelligence authorities concluded in 2006 that Smartmatic, a company devised by Venezuela, posed a threat to U.S. national security. 

At the time, this conclusion by U.S. intelligence was based on the premise that: (1) Venezuela had a clear intent to influence U.S. politics, and (2) there was evidence that Venezuela had manipulated its own domestic elections (Smartmatic's ties to Venezuela posed a national security threat was based on solid intelligence regarding Venezuelan government intent to influence US politics and evidence of Venezuelan manipulation of their own electoral systems). However, it is analyzed that U.S. intelligence authorities were not 100% certain at the time, as the report relied on information obtained from "limited (local) human sources." 

The full extent of Venezuelan election manipulation has only surfaced relatively recently. This follows the emergence of Hugo Carvajal Barrios, who oversaw election rigging while serving as the director of military intelligence under the regimes of Hugo Chávez and Nicolas Maduro. 

A capture of the CIA's summary report on "2004-2020 Venezuela's Electronic Voting Manipulation Capabilities" declassified by the Trump administration on the 16th (local time). 

A puzzle solved by the confession of Venezuela's 'head of election manipulation'

Former Director Carvajal, who was arrested in Spain in 2021 and extradited to the U.S. in 2023, underwent a change of heart upon the arrival of the Trump administration. He delivered a shocking revelation, stating, "The Venezuelan regime developed Smartmatic as a tool for election rigging and subsequently exported it overseas, including to the U.S., to engage in fraudulent elections and espionage activities." [Refer to our report dated December 5, 2025: <[Exclusive] "Involved in U.S. election fraud via Smartmatic," Venezuelan former intelligence chief sends shocking letter to Trump>] 

In a handwritten letter sent to President Trump late last year, he tipped off the White House that the Smartmatic system was a sophisticated tool for election manipulation, writing, "I personally oversaw the IT director of the Venezuelan National Electoral Council (CNE) who was placed in that position, and because he reported directly to me, I know the full story better than anyone." 

The beginning of this massive investigative pursuit dates back to April 2004, when local intelligence reported that Chávez had declared, "The top priority is to stop the incumbent U.S. President (Bush) from being reelected." Consequently, U.S. intelligence identified this as clear intent for election interference by a foreign dictatorship and moved to force the exit of Smartmatic. 

Specifically, after a persistent pursuit, U.S. intelligence authorities eventually forced Smartmatic to divest its U.S. operations and withdraw in 2007 (This assessment led to US government action forcing Smartmatic to divest its US operations in 2007). 

The 2007 exit of Smartmatic from the U.S… Undervaluation and the boomerang effect

The declassified CIA documents vividly record the circumstances under which the Chávez and Maduro regimes continuously sought to utilize electronic voting systems for election manipulation between 2004 and 2020.

According to local intelligence reports, ahead of the 2012 Venezuelan presidential election, Chávez's regime intelligence agencies—including the Directorate General of Military Counterintelligence (DGCIM) and the National Intelligence Service (SEBIN), which collects domestic and foreign intelligence—conspired with the National Electoral Council (CNE) and Smartmatic to develop a plan to manipulate election results using pre-programmed voting machines. 

They placed rigged machines in approximately 300 polling stations in pro-Chávez areas, aiming for a "1.5 million-vote victory margin." In the actual election, Chávez won by a margin of 1.6 million votes, nearly identical to the plan. U.S. intelligence networks even captured intelligence suggesting that those involved in the manipulation toasted their success immediately after the election.

In the end, Smartmatic was officially forced out of the U.S. market in 2007, and the U.S. proceeded to hold elections using "Dominion Voting Systems." However, in the 2020s, the tragic fact emerged that the source codes for Dominion and Smartmatic were essentially identical. Added to this was testimony that Smartmatic was manufactured in a Chinese factory under Chávez's orders, pushing U.S. election security into a new phase. It is analyzed that while the U.S. underestimated the warnings of the past, the systemic vulnerabilities that infiltrated the electoral infrastructure ultimately returned as a boomerang, causing the president of the world's superpower to fail in his reelection bid. 

Consequently, attention is focused on whether the United States, which has been clearing peripheral strongholds one by one, will launch a strike at the source in the near future. 

Maduro and his wife being forcibly transferred from detention to court [New York EPA=Yonhap News]