"In August 2020, the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, went to the U.S. ambassador with an extraordinary request. Salvadoran authorities had intercepted a conversation between a journalist and a U.S. embassy contractor about corruption among high-level aides to the president. The contractor, a U.S. citizen, was no ordinary source. He collaborated with U.S. and Salvadoran investigators who were targeting the president's inner circle."
"Bukele wanted the contractor out of the country and in Ambassador Ronald D. Johnson, he had a powerful American friend. Johnson was a former CIA officer and appointee of President Donald Trump serving in his first diplomatic post. He had cultivated a strikingly close relationship with the Salvadoran president. After Bukele provided Johnson with the recordings, the ambassador immediately ordered an investigation that resulted in the contractor's dismissal."
"It was not the only favor Johnson did for Bukele, according to a ProPublica investigation based on a previously undisclosed report by the State Department's inspector general and interviews with U.S. and Salvadoran officials. The dismissal of the contractor was part of a pattern in which Johnson has been accused of shielding Bukele from U.S. and Salvadoran law enforcement, ProPublica found."
In August 2020 President Nayib Bukele asked U.S. Ambassador Ronald D. Johnson to remove a U.S. embassy contractor after Salvadoran authorities intercepted a conversation between the contractor and a journalist about corruption among Bukele aides. The contractor was a cooperative source for U.S. and Salvadoran investigators and had helped an FBI-led task force uncover a suspected alliance between Bukele's government and the MS-13 gang, including alleged prison meetings where aides agreed to give gang leaders money and protection in exchange for reduced violence. Ambassador Johnson ordered an investigation that led to the contractor's dismissal and has been accused of shielding Bukele, including not pursuing an extradition of an MS-13 boss.
Read at english.elpais.com
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