More from the article ...

... It was before dawn on a Friday in January when a Gulfstream G600 with the burnt-orange Texas Longhorns logo on its tail landed at Dulles airport outside Washington, D.C. Its owner, a little-known oil billionaire named Jeffery Hildebrand, had been summoned to the White House.

By mid-afternoon he was in the East Room, just three seats from President Donald Trump, who had recently ordered the military raid that captured Venezuelan leader Nicols Maduro. Now Trump wanted Hildebrand and two dozen other energy executives to commit to investing $100 billion in Venezuela's decrepit oil industry.

Many couched their enthusiasm with caveats. ExxonMobil's CEO called Venezuela "uninvestable" without changes to its legal system. The head of ConocoPhillips wanted U.S. government financing.

But Hildebrand, a major Trump donor whose wife had been named ambassador to Costa Rica, had already seen how loyalty could be rewarded.

Even though he had no notable operations outside the U.S., he hunched toward a microphone and said in a halting voice, "Hilcorp is fully committed and ready to go to rebuilding the infrastructure in Venezuela."

"That's good," Trump said. "You'll be very happy." ...