Chairman risch Senate Foreign Relations Committee will come to order, please. I want to thank special representative abrams and Senior Deputy assistant administrator hodges for their service and for appearing here today to discuss the worsening crisis in venezuela. Its hard to imagine a more pressing National Security concern in the western hemisphere than the political, humanitarian, and economic crisis provoked by maduro and his cronies in venezuela. In the last several years maduro has dramatically deepened relation was the most dangerous forces in the world which were first established by his predecessor, hugo chavez. On his watch, cuba, russia, china, iran transnational criminal organizations, and u. S. Designated foreign terrorist organizations, have turned venezuela into their playground. Their activities are intolerable. Security threats to the United States and the hemisphere at large. And prolong the humanitarian crisis provoked by the socialist policies of the regime. Nearly