The Bolivian Hitman Plot That Exposed a Right-Wing Political Machine

On a street in Bolivia, two hitmen walked up to Nadia Bayer and tried to shoot her dead. She survived. From her hospital bed, she began to unravel a network of dirty tricks, foreign money, and political violence that connects the Trump campaign's former digital director to right-wing leaders across Latin America.

Bayer is the pregnant girlfriend of Fernando Sarmiento, a political operative who has been described as "MAGA Man in Latin America" by The Economist. Sarmiento is the business partner of Brad Parscale, who managed Donald Trump's 2016 campaign and 2020 campaign before becoming a registered foreign agent for Israel. Together, they built a consultancy that exported American-style culture war campaigning into Latin American elections—with extraordinary success.

How the Machine Worked

Sarmiento and his partner Javier Negre built what José Luis Granados, Breaking Points' Latin America bureau chief, calls a "disinformation outlet" called La Derecha Diario (The Daily Right Wing). Their model was simple: import the US political consulting system, weaponize culture war issues, and polarize electorates so thoroughly that voters weren't choosing a candidate so much as voting against their opponent.