Joaquin Archivaldo Guzman Lorea (“El Chapo”) is likely to spend the rest of his life in a federal penitentiary (probably in southern Colorado along with the Unabomber) after being convicted in federal court in Brooklyn yesterday, after a three-month long trial, of masterminding the huge drug cartel known as the Sinaloa Cartel. All ten counts.
El Chapo was the most powerful drug trafficker in the world until he was extradited from Mexico to the United States.
El Chapo (“Shorty” en espanol) was, at the time of his extradition, said to be worth fourteen billion dollars.
Mexican Judge Vicente Bermudez Zacarias, who presided over El Chapo’s extradition proceedings, was assassinated in Octrober 2016 (when the USA still had a good president) while jogging near Mexico City.
Yup, El Chapo is, in short, one bad dude; and because so many Americans enjoy the Sinaloa Cartel’s heroin, he has many thug friends in Mexico and Guatemala and elsewhere.
He was, indeed, extradited to the US, on the condition that if convicted, he would not receive the death penalty.
During his trial in the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York, one witness testified that Shorty tried to bribe then-Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto in the paltry amount of $100 million. Pena Nieto denies this, of course.
As Donald Trump teases the US on his crazy-ass Border Wall between now and Friday, our crack investigative reporter, Susanna Sherman, and our chief associate solitary reporter, Johanna Jones, eavesdropped moments ago on Trump’s conversation with gung ho Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney.
As prize-winning author Michael D’Antonio, author of DonNever Enough: Donald Trump and the Pursuit of Success, knows full well, Trump is no stranger to corruption.
“Mick,” Trump said, “I have all the money in the world — even more than Michael Bloomberg — so what would you think of me pardoning El Chapo if he’ll help me build my Wall?”
Sherman, who is very adroit, and has the capability of being in several places at the same time, just confronted Acting Attorney General and perenially bald Matthew Whitaker, who told Sherman that his boss will most certainly get his Wall built, with El Chapo’s help.
In other news, Brock Long, FEMA’s Director, has resigned, after his boss, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, threw him under the
bus — not because he did such a s____y job in Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria, but because he misused government vehicles commuting from his home in the Tarheel State to the District of Columbia (https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/13/politics/brock-long-fema/index.html).