August 24, 2005: Former CIA Operative Advocates Assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez

Wayne Simmons, a former CIA operative, appears on the Hannity & Colmes show to offer his assessment of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. He calls Chavez “a college-educated, militarily trained, lethal murderer, treacherous letch, who has… threatened not only the United States and the West, but armed himself with the revolutionary armed forces of Colombia.” “He specializes in murder, mayhem, extortion, and so on,” he adds. Simmons also accuses Chavez of being “in bed with Castro” and alleges that he is part of “the Bolivarian neo-communist regime movement that… will not be satisfied until they have penetrated every government from Ecuador to Panama, Colombia, and so on… .” When asked by Colmes whether the US should “assassinate him,” Simmons replies, “Well, listen, if a stray bullet from a hunter in Kentucky should find its way between… this guy’s eyes,… no American should lose any sleep over it.” Colmes then asks if “assassinating a leader of another country [would] be the Christian thing to do,” to which Simmons responds: “Listen, this is not about Christians. I’m a Christian, as well, but I’m about protecting this country and protecting Americans.… I absolutely would [support his assassination]—he should have been killed a long time ago.… this guy needs to go.” When Hannity and Holmes insist that assassinating Chavez would be against the law, Simmons compares Chavez to Adolf Hitler warning that the Venezuelan president “absolutely has the possibility of becoming [a Hitler] in South America.” [Fox, 8/24/2005]