at a border crossing between Colombia and Venezuela:

The scene has become a critical flashpoint

in the political and economic crisis gripping the country.

Senior U.S. officials immediately

seized on the incident, blaming President Maduro

and his supporters for intentionally

torching the convoy.

But an investigation by The Times

calls this conclusion into serious question

and shows that U.S. officials raced to judgment

without the full facts.

How did we get here?

The Venezuelan crisis came to a head in early 2019,

when opposition leader Juan Guaidó declared himself

president in a bid to unseat Nicolás Maduro, whose

authoritarian rule and economic mismanagement

resulted in searing poverty.

Backed by the U.S.,

Guaidó mobilized his followers

to bring American aid into Venezuela.

But Maduro blocked border crossings and denied entry.

On Feb. 23,

four aid trucks arrived at a bridge on the Colombian side

of the border.

Guaidó supporters cleared a path

and drove the trucks toward Venezuela.

Security forces repelled them, firing tear gas and rubber bullets,

and the aid trucks got stuck on the bridge.

The Colombian government released

this annotated footage of the standoff.

They circle the Venezuelan police near the trucks

before the fire breaks out.

The implication appears to be that the Maduro regime caused

the fire.

But note the time stamp in the footage they circulated:

It suddenly jumps ahead by 13 minutes and misses

the critical moments leading up to the fire.

We obtained previously unseen TV footage

that fills this gap and tells a more complicated story.

So let’s back up the TV footage

and see what happened.

A small group of protesters starts throwing

rocks and Molotov cocktails.

We’ll focus on this one protester.

Here we see him throwing two Molotovs toward police.

Let’s look at the scene again.

Four trucks are stranded on the bridge.

The protester approaches from here, behind the third truck.

He launches one Molotov.

But the second one separates and the burning rag

veers off toward the trucks — not the police.

Let’s fast forward a little, and we’ll synchronize

the security footage.

We can see that a fire has taken

hold on one of the trucks.

This is just 30 seconds after the burning rag

landed in this area.

This sequence of events shows the fire was most likely

started by an errant Molotov, not by Maduro security

forces.

In minutes, the cargo is ablaze.

the cargo is ablaze that as this journalist

As this journalist turns the corner to get a better angle,

she takes the same route as the protester

who threw the Molotov and points her camera

in the direction the rag went, where a fire is now blazing.

This was the start of the fire that

spread rapidly and consumed three trucks.

Both police and protesters scrambled to contain the scene.

As the chaos was unfolding,

the incident quickly escalated into a political firestorm.

A Venezuelan journalist tweeted this report,

blaming Maduro.

Twelve minutes later, Senator Marco Rubio

retweeted the unsubstantiated claim.

National security adviser John Bolton weighed in soon after.

And then U.S.A.I.D. administrator Mark Green

claimed that Maduro had ordered the burning.

Secretary of State Pompeo tweeted out the same visuals

that evening.

None of the U.S. officials offered

any definitive evidence supporting their claim.

They doubled down on Sunday talk shows:

“There’s a sick tyrant, Maduro, who’s

denying food to starving Venezuelans and medicine

to sick Venezuelans; burning trucks with …

this is the worst of the worst of a tyrant.”

And officials continue to cite the burning

trucks at the U.N.

Security Council.

“Armed gangs, thugs and criminals

released from prisons were mobilized

to control the border.

Their actions led to the burning

of humanitarian assistance rather than its protection.”

It’s true that Maduro has a horrific human rights record

and that he deploys armed gangs called colectivos

to terrorize the opposition.

But in this specific incident, our analysis

shows U.S. officials used unverified claims to spin

their side of the story.

Officials we contacted either did not comment

or failed to provide evidence supporting their claims.

What happened on the bridge is a classic example

of how misinformation spreads online.

A rumor or unproven claim is made.

It’s amplified by influential people.

Mainstream media brings it to the masses.

“Venezuelan national guardsmen under orders from President

Nicolás Maduro attacked two aid trucks yesterday,

lighting them on fire.”

And in this case, there were real-life consequences.

“Effective today, the United States

will impose additional sanctions on regime officials.”

And those new sanctions were triggered in part

by the burning of aid trucks on the bridge.