Spying for Cuba: Former U.S. Ambassador Will Plead Guilty to Two Counts

Victor Manuel Rocha, a U.S. career diplomat, was accused back in December of spying for Cuba for forty years. On Thursday, he agreed to plead guilty to two counts.

A former U.S. diplomat accused of spying for Cuba for more than 40 years said he will plead guilty to charges the Department of Justice (DOJ) brought against him in December 2023.
Victor Manuel Rocha, 73, told Judge Beth Bloom on Thursday that he would change his plea, indicating he is prepared to plead guilty to two counts, according to The New York Times.
The DOJ charged Rocha in December for working as a covert agent for Cuba’s General Directorate of Intelligence since 1981, the same year he started working at the State Department.
He was accused of using access to classified information and foreign policy to assist Cuba. He faced counts of conspiring to act as an agent of a foreign government and using a passport obtained via a false statement.

While it's somewhat amazing that Mr. Rocha somehow got away with this for as long as he did; consider that he began spying for Cuba the year Ronald Reagan was inaugurated as President.

Attorney General Merrick Garland said in December that Rocha performed one of the “longest-lasting infiltrations” of the U.S. by a foreign agent.
“Those who have the privilege of serving in the government of the United States are given an enormous amount of trust by the public we serve,” Garland said. “To betray that trust by falsely pledging loyalty to the United States while serving a foreign power is a crime that will be met with the full force of the Justice Department.”

Given Cuba's loss of their former patron, the Soviet Union, it's easy to forget that the United States has an actual, Cold-War-style Communist country just off the Florida coast - and, amazingly, Rocha is accused of starting to spy for Cuba when the Soviet Union and the Cold War were both going concerns.

American leftists, however, continue to shill for Cuba to this day.

Why Did Far-Left Democrats Make a Secret 'Human Rights' Trip to Communist Cuba?

And if Rocha had not encountered an undercover FBI agent, he might still be passing information to Cuba today.

Rocha, who served in several federal roles including as U.S. ambassador to Bolivia from 2000 to 2002, allegedly revealed his ties with Cuba during meetings with an undercover FBI agent in 2022 and 2023, in which he called the U.S. an “enemy.” The former diplomat hails from Colombia and became a U.S. citizen in 1978.

In any organization as huge and complex as the United States government has become, it stands to reason that some people with nefarious intent will 1) infiltrate the government and arrive in sensitive positions, and 2) pass on information without being detected, maybe for decades, as Rocha has now admitted to doing — and it's also great to see the FBI actually doing one of the jobs it was supposedly intended to do from its inception, namely, detecting and arresting people who are committing espionage.

It will be interesting to see what Merrick Garland's Justice Department does with this case. Will Rocha receive the punishment that 40 years of spying for Cuba warrants, or will he get a slap on the wrist and sent home?