Capture of an X (formerly Twitter) post.

Recently, U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Cain visited the Dominican Republic and Trinidad and Tobago, respectively. Both countries are island nations in the Caribbean Sea near Venezuela. This has led to speculation that President Donald Trump is planning a military operation in Venezuela.

Speculation? No. Trump is indeed preparing a military operation in Venezuela. About ten days prior to this, on the 16th (local time), the carrier strike group of the U.S. Navy's "USS Gerald R. Ford," the world's largest aircraft carrier, was dispatched to the Caribbean Sea north of Venezuela, and a secret operation by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was authorized.

The media reports this as an operation by the Trump administration to crack down on drug cartels, but that is not the reality. What Trump is truly aiming for is the source code of Smartmatic (a multinational company that provides electronic voting systems) and Dominion (a company specializing in voting systems) held by Venezuela's National Electoral Council. It is an operation to strike at the heart of the global election rigging cartel.

However, at this very time, Lee Jae-myung was in South Africa, proclaiming that there were no issues with electronic voting. It's like a thief snatching at their feet. At this critical juncture when Trump is declaring he will pour everything into eradicating election fraud, Lee Jae-myung is advocating for the expansion of electronic voting among overseas Koreans. Is this a coincidence?

Venezuela is the origin of election rigging. In 2004, Hugo Chávez, following advice from Fidel Castro's regime in Cuba, created a system to manipulate vote counts. They spent $200 million on engineers, including Smartmatic CEO Antonio Mugica, a Venezuelan national, to complete the electronic voting manipulation system. This spread throughout South America and infiltrated the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

Bolivia's Evo Morales was ousted in 2019 after vote manipulation and ballot switching were exposed. Smartmatic's CEO in Venezuela admitted to the Associated Press in 2017 that he manipulated one million votes in an election.

The evidence is overwhelming. Yet, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the CIA covered it up. Former FBI Director Christopher Wray buried evidence he found of fake identification entering from China in 2020. Gary Schroen, a 23-year veteran of the CIA, reported evidence of election fraud to the U.S. Director of National Intelligence (DNI) and the FBI, but was instead investigated and forced to flee to Switzerland. Enemies within the United States aided in the election fraud.

Trump has now begun to move in earnest. By raiding Venezuela and securing the source code, the map of global election rigging will be complete.

South America's election systems are dominated by Venezuela's Smartmatic and Dominion. Russia interfered in elections in Belarus and Georgia. China directly intervened in Cambodia and Myanmar. So, who was responsible for the remaining countries in Asia and Africa?

Trump publicly stated in February this year that the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) interfered in Indian elections. The entity that exported electronic voting machines worldwide in partnership with USAID is South Korea's A-web. The Chairman of the Electoral Commission of Congo has been indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice. The Chairman of the Philippine Electoral Commission has also been indicted. The Chairman of Venezuela's Electoral Council and the Chief Justice are also under sanctions from the U.S. Department of State.

The world is witnessing the lesson that when electoral commissions become corrupt, nations collapse, and democracy is destroyed. Yet, anyone who believes Korea is an exception is a fool.

Lee Jae-myung knows. He knows the Trump-initiated global encirclement is tightening, and that if Venezuela collapses, the links of election rigging could be exposed. That's why he went to South Africa and blabbed about electronic voting being fine.

The Lee Jae-myung administration is tearing down banners related to election fraud and labeling those who claim election fraud as seditionists. It was revealed that the National Election Commission (NEC) lacks network segmentation during the early voting period, and the lack of transparency in ballot box management has also been exposed. Yet, they adamantly refuse to disclose the source code.

This issue has been raised in the National Assembly since 2008. Even the civic group People's Solidarity for Participatory Democracy opposed South Korea's export of electronic counting machines to developing countries due to the risk of election fraud. Lee Jae-myung is now advocating for the expansion of what even the left acknowledged as a dangerous practice. Trump seeks to eradicate worldwide electronic and mail-in voting, yet Lee Jae-myung is on the opposite side, shouting for the expansion of electronic voting. Is this merely a policy difference? This is a matter of survival instinct. He is struggling to prevent his power base from collapsing.

If Venezuela is raided, Pandora's Box will be opened. Smartmatic's source code will be released to the world, the connection between USAID and A-web will be revealed, and the corruption of electoral commissions in various countries will surface.

Trump is confident that he has already secured decisive evidence. FBI Director Kash Patel has initiated an investigation into election fraud. White House lawyer Kurt Olsen, known for the "STOP THE STEAL" movement, has been deployed. Just as the United States brought down the Soviet Union, Trump's grand strategy is to eradicate the election rigging cartel in the process of pressuring China.

Lee Jae-myung is now in a bind. The exchange rate is soaring, the economy is collapsing, the Kim Hyun-ji scandal shows no sign of subsiding, international pressure is mounting, and now the election rigging cartel is also shaking. Let's watch Trump's operation in Venezuela. Whatever comes out of it will be bad news for Lee Jae-myung. Thieves are eventually caught. "STOP THE STEAL!"

Editorial Department, Hanmi Ilbo