Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) denied drinking margaritas during his visit with an accused MS-13 gang member and illegal alien who was deported to El Salvador.
During a press conference, Van Hollen spoke about his visit to El Salvador and his meeting with Abrego Garcia — who Democrats and the news media have described as a “Maryland father with protected status.” Van Hollen claimed that “Margarita-Gate” shows the “lengths” that El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele would go “to deceive people about what’s going on.”
“About what I would call Margarita-Gate, I don’t know if you guys have been following this, but, President Bukele — you know, after I met with Kilmar did this tweet, showing us at a table with these two glasses,” Van Hollen said. “So, here’s what happened. When I first sat down with Kilmar, we just had glasses of water on the table, I think maybe some coffee.”
Van Hollen continued to claim that as they were talking, “one of the government people came over” to their table and set down what looked like margaritas.
“If you look at the one they put in front of Kilmar, it actually had a little less liquid than the one in front of me — to try to make it look, I assume, like he drank out of it,” Van Hollen added. “Let me just be very clear, neither of us touched the drinks that were in front of us. And, if you want to play a little Sherlock Holmes, I’ll tell you how you can know that. If you look at the video or the picture I sent out from the beginning of our meeting, you’ll see there are no glasses on the table. So, you’ll see in later videos they are on the table.”
“But, they made a little mistake,” Van Hollen added. “If you sip out of one of those glasses, some of whatever it was — salt or sugar, would disappear. You would see a gap. There’s no gap. Nobody drank any margaritas or sugar water or whatever it is.”
“A person familiar with the situation,” told the New York Times that “a Bukele aide placed the two glasses with cherries and salted rims on the table” in front of the two men.
Van Hollen’s comments come after Bukele shared photos of Van Hollen and Abrego Garcia’s meeting, claiming that they were “sipping margaritas” together.
“Kilmar Abrego Garcia, miraculously risen from the ‘death camps’ & ‘torture’, now sipping margaritas with Sen. Van Hollen in the tropical paradise of El Salvador,” Bukele wrote in a post on X.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has previously explained that the Trump administration has “credible intelligence” that proves that Abrego Garcia “was involved in human trafficking,” and is also a “member” and a “leader, of the brutal MS-13 gang.”
“The administration maintains the position that this individual — who was deported to El Salvador, and will not be returning to our country, was a member of the brutal and vicious MS-13 gang. That is fact number one,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt explained. “Fact number two, we also have credible intelligence proving that this individual was involved in human trafficking. And, fact number three, this individual was a member, actually a leader, of the brutal MS-13 gang — which this President has designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.”
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) revealed in a press release that when Abrego Garcia was arrested, “he was found with rolls of cash and drugs,” and that he was arrested “with two other members of MS-13.”
“When arrested, he was wearing a sweatshirt with roles [sic] of money of money covering the ears, mouth, and eyes of presidents on various currency denominations,” the press release continued. “This is a known MS-13 gang symbol of see no evil, hear no evil, say no evil.”
– News’s Neil Munro reported that during his press conference, Van Hollen called for El Salvador’s government to let Abrego Garcia go, and questioned why El Salvador was “continuing to imprison a man where they have no evidence that he’s committed any crime,” despite there being “growing evidence that Abrego Garcia beat his wife,” and “served as a street hustler in Maryland for the MS-13 gang.”:
Van Hollen and Democrats are also ignoring the growing evidence that Abrego Garcia beat his wife, served as a street hustler in MAryland for the MS-13 gang, and helped smuggle more illegal migrants into the jobs and housing needed by Van Hollen’s constituents.
While an appeals court upheld a judge’s order requiring the Trump administration to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return to the United States, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller has explained that the Trump administration can not force El Salvador’s government to send Abrego Garcia back.
“Now that he’s been confirmed healthy, he gets the honor of staying in El Salvador’s custody,” Bukele wrote in another post on X.
