Chavez died in 2013, which sounds like solid evidence that he isn’t playing an active role in any election seven years later. But the Chavez-Soros nexus has become a surprisingly thriving storyline as Trump’s legal team scrambles for proof that Biden’s election was illegitimate.

To understand where the focus on Venezuela is coming from, you have to realize that the Trump campaign and their allies have become fixated on voting machines from Dominion Voting Systems. In the days after the election, Trump and his supporters insisted that nearly huge tranches of Trump votes in Georgia and Michigan had been switched to Biden—often only citing evidence posted on anonymous pro-Trump forum TheDonald.Win.

In reality, though, the machines were only used in a handful of relevant counties, and they hadn’t changed votes.