Maryland Dem Senator who went to El Salvador to demand release of MS-13 member faces violations of Logan Act

Many in th GOP are calling for Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) to be charged with violations of the Logan Act after the lawmaker traveled to El Salvador to demand the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an El Salvadoran national who was deported from the US over his ties to the violent MS-13 gang.

Van Hollen said he was denied access to Abrego Garcia, and met with Vice President Félix Ulloa while in the country. Van Hollen told reporters, "Why is the government of El Salvador continuing to imprison a man where they have no evidence that he’s committed any crime and they have not been provided any evidence from the United States that he has committed any crime?"

Political consultant Roger Stone wrote, "Why hasn’t this US Senator been arrested for violation of the Logan Act? It’s illegal to conduct your own foreign policy."

Women for America First executive director Kylie Jane Kremer wrote, "Senator Van Hollen should be immediately arrested upon returning to the United States from El Salvador & indicted for violating The Logan Act, as well as Treason, for attempting to bring an already deported illegal alien & MS-13 gang member back to the US."

https://twiter.com/KylieJaneKremer/status/1912515310910873701

Radio host Jeff Kuhner wrote, "Sen. Chris Van Hollen went to El Salvador to plead for the return of an alleged MS-13 gang banger, human trafficker, wife beater, foreign terrorist & criminal illegal alien. This is not only evil. It's treason. Van Hollen has violated the Logan Act. The FBI needs to ARREST him!"

The Logan Act, 18 U.S. Code § 953, states, "Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both."

Since the law was enacted in 1798, there have been just two prosecutions under it, neither of which led to a conviction, per a 2018 Congressional Research Service report. One took place in 1803, in which a Kentucky farmer argued for the Western United States to ally with France, and the other took place in 1853, in which a man was arrested under the act for writing a letter to the President of Mexico. 

Van Hollen said that he would visit El Salvador after the nation’s president, Nayib Bukele, visited President Donald Trump at the White House. During his Oval Office meeting, Bukele said he would not return Abrego Garcia to the United States. 

"How can I smuggle, how can I return him to the United States? I smuggle him into the United States? What do I do? Of course, I’m not going to do it," Bukele said, later adding, "I don’t have the power to return him to the United States."

The Department of Justice said in a court filing that they do not have the power to return Abrego Garcia, and said that the plaintiffs in the case were making "demands of the El Salvadoran government."

It has been revealed that Abrego Garcia’s wife in 2021 petitioned for a domestic violence protective order against him. Documents released by the Department of Justice on Tuesday revealed that Abrego Garcia is a member of MS-13’s Western Clique, holding the rank of “Chequeo,” with the moniker “Chele," and was seen by officers with the Prince George’s County Police Gang Unit wearing clothing with symbols tied to the gang when they took him into custody in 2019. Abrego Garcia also admitted to entering the country illegally in 2012.