From the New York Times, I'm Michael Wabaro. This is The Daily.

Today, for weeks after mass protests and international pressure failed to unseat

Venice Whale and President Nicholas Maduro, it became clear that it would take

defections from within his own regime to remove him from power. Now, secret documents

leaked to my colleague Nick Case, suggest that people around Maduro are starting to turn on him.

It's Friday, May 3rd.

Nick, what happened at the beginning of this week in Venezuela?

It's around sunrise Tuesday morning and Venezuelans wake up to this video, which has suddenly appeared.

Venezuela, very good days.

And it's one way though.

Why those the leader of the National Assembly, they're very used to seeing him. He's been saying that

he is the legitimate president of Venezuela for months and that he's going to topple Nicholas Maduro.

But he hasn't been able to do that so far.

Except in this video, suddenly things look different. He's standing on a military base.

He's got National Guardsmen standing behind him.

And he's saying the moment has come.

This is it. Everybody is going to start to rebel right now. These men behind me are on my side,

and it's only a matter of time till the rest of the country is going to be as well.

Come out to the streets, come out and join us. The moment is at hand.

And then when you look behind him in the video, there's another man that everybody in Venezuela

recognizes, but hasn't seen in a while. They uphold a Lopez who is a political prisoner.

The most famous political prisoner in the country who's been sentenced to a almost 14-year jail

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