Donald Trump and his critics were busy this week.

In response to the “No Kings” rallies, Trump posted a video, created by artificial intelligence, that showed him wearing a crown, flying a plane, and dumping excrement on protestors in America cities. But that’s not all. Trump literally took a sledgehammer to the White House, destroying the historic East Wing to make room for his new “President Donald J. Trump Ballroom.” But that’s not all. Trump filed a claim demanding that the government pay him $230 million to offset supposed damages Trump had suffered as a result of government investigations of him. Trump will decide whether his Department of Justice should pay him $230 million of taxpayer money.

Maybe the press had a right to be distracted.

But not me, your worthy opinion commentator.

In the avalanche of last week’s news, one story has not received the attention it deserves.

Earlier this year, the United States wanted to be able to deport people who were described as Venezuelan gang members to the CECOT prison in El Salvador. The U.S. agreed to pay El Salvador a fee of $6 million to hold 300 American prisoners for one year pending the U.S. government’s final decision on where to place the prisoners.

The deal apparently included one extraordinarily unseemly aspect.

MS-13 is an El Salvadoran gang. According to articles in The Washington Post, CNN, and ProPublica, the administration of El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele refused to accept the 300 Venezuelan prisoners unless the U.S. agreed to return at least nine MS-13 gang leaders — some of whom were protected federal informants — to El Salvador. Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke to Attorney General Pam Bondi about the proposal, and Rubio ultimately agreed to the deal.

The El Salvadoran government had apparently made deals for the MS-13 gang to use its political influence to turn out votes for candidates belonging to Bukele’s Nuevas Ideas party in legislative elections in 2021. The gang bosses had also “agreed to reduce the number of public murders in El Salvador, which politically benefited the government of El Salvador, by creating the perception that the government was reducing the murder rate,” according to a federal indictment.

For years, Bukele has sought to block witnesses from testifying about alleged ties between his government and the gang. At least three of the MS-13 leaders involved in Rubio’s deal had previously given testimony that some members of Bukele’s government had ties to the gang.

If the United States really released to El Salvador gang members who were “protected federal informants” to obtain use of the CECOT prison, then the press — liberal or otherwise — should be screaming louder.

Is Trump really sending protected federal informants, who gave testimony about how the El Salvadoran government had agreements with gang members for the gangs to serve the government’s purposes, back to El Salvador?

If so, then the Trump administration has hit the immoral trifecta. First, the federal government is violating its word. The government agreed to “protect” informants, not to condemn those informants by sending them back to the country whose government they incriminated.

Second, to all appearances, the U.S. government is sending its informants back to near-certain death. High-level gang members who gave testimony ratting out both the MS-13 gang and the El Salvadoran government are not going to survive for long in El Salvador. Damn near everyone in the country wants those turncoats dead.

Lastly, if the U.S. government releases protected informants to achieve political ends, who will ever agree in the future to give evidence to the U.S. government in return (in part) for the government’s protection? Everyone will know that, when the government sees a political advantage from no longer protecting you, the government will break its promise to give protection. If you want to entice informants to speak, you must provide iron-clad permanent protection, not meaningless protection that can later be undone at the whim of government officials.

The press should pursue this story relentlessly, investigating who was sent back to El Salvador, what protection the U.S. government had previously promised them, and how long those folks survived after being shipped back home.

A sophomoric AI video, the destruction of a historic building, and a demand for $230 million are news. But sending protected informants back to the country (and gang) they incriminated may well top last week’s heap.

Mark Herrmann spent 17 years as a partner at a leading international law firm and later oversaw litigation, compliance and employment matters at a large international company. He is the author of The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Practicing Law and Drug and Device Product Liability Litigation Strategy (affiliate links). You can reach him by email at inhouse@abovethelaw.com.

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