Guardian was told in April 2002 by Wayne Madsen, a conspiracy theorist and blogger, that his country's navy had lent assistance to coup organizers by providing them with intelligence from its vessels in the Caribbean. Its sister paper, The Observer, established that the coup was "tied to senior officials in the US government" after receiving information from OAS officials that the US was not only aware of the coup, but also gave sanction to its organizers. The paper names Elliot Abrams, who had been convicted of deceiving Congress during the Iran Contra Affair, as being the one who greenlit the coup. In December 2004, The New York Times reported on the release of newly declassified intelligence documents that showed that the CIA and Bush administration officials had advance knowledge of an imminent plot to oust President Chávez, although the same documents do not indicate the United States supported the plot. The United States embassy in Venezuela informed Chávez of a possible coup, though Chávez ignored their warnings.The New York Times notes that the documents used by Golinger do not show direct involvement of the U.S. government in the coup attempt; instead, they show that U.S. officials issued "repeated warnings that the United States will not support any extraconstitutional moves to oust Chávez," whilst nonetheless talking only "broadly" to Mr. Chávez about opposition plans, and "provid[ing] few hard details of the looming plot". Bush Administration officials acknowledged meeting with some of the planners of the coup in the several weeks prior to 11 April but have strongly denied encouraging the coup itself, saying that they insisted on constitutional means. However, the purpose of the meetings was not clarified, and it is also not known why US officials and the Venezuelan opposition broached the subject of a coup months before the attempted ousting took place. In addition, The New York Times quotes an anonymous Defense Department official in charge of developing policy towards Venezuela as saying that, "We were not discouraging people. ... We were sending informal, subtle signals that we don't like this guy. We didn't say, 'No, don't you dare, though he denied the Defense Department offered material help, such as weaponry. Because of the allegations, an investigation conducted by the US Inspector General, at the request of US Senator Christopher Dodd, requested a review of American activities leading up to and during the coup attempt. The OIG report found