“[P]atently unbelievable”—that’s what the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit called the libel theory offered up by Diosdado Cabello, formerly the second-most powerful politician in Venezuela and one of the heads of the late President Hugo Chavez’s political party, who claimed there was simply no way a U.S. government official could have leaked information about a Department of Justice drug investigation into Cabello.

According to the 2015 article, titled “Venezuelan Officials Suspected of Turning Country into Global Cocaine Hub,” cited more than a dozen unnamed sources who said an elite unit at the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration was building a case against Cabello and others in the Venezuelan government. Cabello was called a leading target in the investigation.