High-Ranking Democrat Gives Trump Admin Hard Deadline To Answer About An Alleged Pact Between Trump And Bukele To Release MS-13 Leaders

Rep. Robert Garcia, the Democratic ranking member in the House Oversight Committee, is demanding answers from the Trump administration over reports about a secret pact between President Donald Trump and Salvadoran counterpart Nayib Bukele regarding a secret pact to release MS-13 leaders in the U.S.

In a letter to the Department of Justice, State and Homeland Security, Garcia said such actions could have "compromised American law enforcement operations to hinder the transnational criminal organization."

Garcia noted that the alleged agreement saw the U.S. dropping charges against the gang leaders and, in exchange, Bukele accepted incarcerating hundreds of Venezuelans deported to the country earlier this year under the Alien Enemies Act in its infamous CECOT prison.

"If true, this surreptitious deal struck by the Trump Administration has profound implications for the integrity of the United States justice system and national security. The Committee demands to understand whether U.S. officials facilitated the repatriation of MS-13 leaders to prevent them from cooperating with American prosecutors," the letter added.

Different investigations reported of such a pact early in the Trump administration. In June, a New York Times investigation revealed that American prosecutors have amassed substantial evidence of a pact between the Salvadoran government and some high-ranking MS-13 leaders who agreed to drive down violence and bolster Bukele politically in exchange for cash and perks in jail.

"Some who were part of the federal investigation worry that Mr. Bukele wants the gang leaders back to prevent them from revealing damaging information about his government," reads a passage of the article.

Since Bukele became President of El Salvador in 2019, he has positioned himself as a defender of safety in his native country. Due to constant gang violence, he declared a state of emergency, which suspended some constitutional rights, allowing the government to arrest who it suspected of being a gang member with little to no due process. That emergency designation was supposed to last just a few months, but it has now been years.

Investigations of MS-13 leaders began during the first Trump administration, spearheaded by a cross-agency group called Joint Task Force Vulcan. But now, as the administration quietly drops their charges, the investigation could be severely damaged, and other defendants could be less likely to cooperate or testify in court, The Times added.

It remains unclear how many MS-13 leaders the Trump administration has sent back to El Salvador so far— or how many more it plans to return. At least one of them, Cesar Lopez Larios, was put on a plane to El Salvador in March with other migrants sent to Bukele's maximum-security prison known as CECOT. Lopez had been in U.S. custody for less than a year and was awaiting trial on Long Island on narco-terrorism conspiracy charges.

The Trump administration has not acknowledged the alleged deal between El Salvador and the international criminal organization. Instead, the White House has pointed to its goals of "making America safe again," which include expelling criminals from the country.

The letter by Robert Garcia makes reference to these reports, saying that actions of the Trump administration "appear specifically designed to undercut the work of Task Force Vulcan by returning key witnesses with knowledge of Bukele's deal to MS-13."

Therefore, Garcia asked eight different questions about the matter, giving the administration until September 2 to provide answers.