Government Watchdog Files Ethics Complaint Against Sen. Van Hollen Over Trip to El Salvador to Meet With Alleged Gangbanger

A conservative government oversight non-profit organization has filed an ethics complaint against Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) for “assisting a foreign terrorist organization” with his trip to El Salvador to meet with deported alleged MS-13 gang member Kilmar Abrego Garcia.

In a letter to Senate Majority Leader John Thune, Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) and Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), the American Accountability Foundation demanded that the secretary of the Senate be instructed “not to foot the bill for Van Hollen’s trip” and called for the Senate Ethics Committee to open “an immediate investigation.”

“Despite the overwhelming evidence, Senator Van Hollen decided that he would use Senate funds to fly to El Salvador and advocate for an enemy of the United States. The very least that can be done is to not force the American taxpayer to foot the bill for Senator Van Hollen advocating for terrorists. Leader Thune, we hope you will refuse to allow Senator Van Hollen’s expenses to come out of patriotic Americans’ tax dollars, wrote President of the American Accountability Foundation Thomas Jones.

The watchdog also accused Hollen of violating the Logan Act.

“As you know, Logan Act prohibits unauthorized citizens from negotiating with foreign governments that have a dispute with the United States,” Jones wrote in the letter to the Senate leaders. “Its purpose is to prevent private individuals from interfering in diplomatic relations. By his own admission, Senator Van Hollen was in El Salvador meeting with leaders of the Salvadorian government to attempt to secure Mr. Garcia’s release.  It is hard to imagine a more hostile intrusion into U.S. foreign policy than attempting to smuggle a foreign enemy combatant into the United States.”

Van Hollen was granted his request to meet with Abrego Garcia, 29, Thursday night, after being denied access multiple times. Garcia is being held in El Salvador’s notorious megaprison, the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT).

“I said my main goal of this trip was to meet with Kilmar,” Van Hollen said in a post on X. “Tonight I had that chance. I have called his wife, Jennifer, to pass along his message of love. I look forward to providing a full update upon my return.”

Garcia crossed the border into the United States illegally in 2011 and when he was arrested in 2019, claimed he had to flee El Salvador as a teenager to escape gang violence.

Both the original immigration judge and the Board of Immigration Appeals in 2019 found there was sufficient evidence that Garcia was a member of MS-13 and, as such, a danger to the public.

An immigration judge subsequently barred Garcia from being returned to El Salvador, saying it was “more likely than not that he would be persecuted” there. But now, because President Trump designated MS-13 a foreign terrorist organization, the judge’s ruling is no longer applicable, according to White House Homeland Security advisor Stephen Miller.

In a 9 to 0 decision last week, the Supreme Court instructed the Trump administration to take steps to “facilitate” the return Abrego Garcia, but because the District Court was vague on what steps Trump officials should take, it vacated a district court judge’s order to bring him back to the United States.

Attorney General Pam Bondi said Wednesday that Garcia will not be allowed back into the U.S. unless El Salvador decides to send him here.

“He is an illegal alien who has been living illegally in our country from El Salvador,” Bondi told reporters. “He is not coming back to our country.”

Despite the mounting evidence that  Garcia is a violent MS-13 gang member, human trafficker and wife beater, congressional Democrats have launched a media blitz to have him returned to the United States.

Van Hollen announced on Tuesday that he was traveling to El Salvador to visit the El Salvadoran gangbanger on Wednesday, and several other Democrat lawmakers expressed interest in visiting him as well.

Because El Salvador President Nayib Bukele was out of the country when the senator arrived, he met with Vice President Félix Augusto Antonio Ulloa Garay instead and was given the brush-off.

“I asked the vice president if I could meet with Mr. Abrego Garcia, and he said, ‘Well, you need to make earlier provisions to go visit CECOT,’” Van Hollen complained.

The Democrat said he told Ulloa that he was not interested in taking a tour of CECOT but that he just wanted to meet with Abrego Garcia.

“He said he was not able to make that happen,” Van Hollen said.

Ulloa also denied the senator’s request for the prison to facilitate a phone call between Garcia and his family.

“I asked him if I came back next week whether I’d be able to see Mr. Abrego Garcia. He said he couldn’t promise that either,” Van Hollen told reporters.

The intrepid senator kept pressing and was finally granted a meeting with Abrego Garcia Thursday evening. Van Hollen posted a photo of himself sitting at a table with Garcia drinking water and coffee.

Bukele shared additional photos of Sen. Van Hollen meeting with Garcia.

“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 posted on X.

 

In a subsequent post, Bukele wrote, “Now that he’s been confirmed healthy, he gets the honor of staying in El Salvador’s custody.”

Bukele later posted on X, “I love chess.”

As this drama was unfolding in El Salvador, President Trump hosted Patty Morin, the mother of Maryland woman Rachel Morin, who was brutally murdered in Maryland by an illegal alien MS-13 gang member  in 2023, at the White House.

Morin joined the White House press briefing, where she blasted Van Hollen for traveling to El Salvador in an attempt to retrieve the deported criminal.

Patty Morin graphically described the 2023 murder of her 37-year-old daughter by Victor Martinez-Hernandez, a Salvadoran illegal immigrant and MS-13 member who was convicted Monday of the crime, before expressing her frustration with her home state senator.

“I just don’t understand this,”  Morin told reporters on Wednesday.  “A senator from Maryland who didn’t even acknowledge—or barely acknowledged—my daughter and the brutal death that she endured, leaving her five children without a mother” chose to “use my tax money to fly to El Salvador to bring back a person … who isn’t even an American citizen.”

“We are not the same,” the White House posted on X.

The entire American Accountability Foundation’s letter can be read below:

April 17, 2025
Senators Thune, Lankford and Coons
United States Senate
Washington DC 20515

Leader Thune and Senators Lankford and Coons –
The American Accountability Foundation is writing with a two-fold request. First we are requesting that as Leader Senator Thune, you order the Secretary of the Senate to refuse pay any expenses associated with Senator Chris Van Hollen’s trip to El Salvador to assist a foreign terrorist, and that the Ethics Committee open an investigation of Senator Van Hollen for assistance of a foreign terrorist organization and for violations of the Logan Act.

As you are undoubtedly aware, MS-13 has been designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) and Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGTs).

Mr. Kilmar Abrego-Garcia has twice been found by United States courts to be a member of MS 13. 2 Mr. Abrego-Garcia is essentially an enemy combatant in the on-going invasion of the United States by transnational gangs. Despite the overwhelming evidence, Senator Van Hollen decided that he would use Senate funds to fly to El Salvador and advocate for an enemy of the United States. The very least that can be done is to not force the American taxpayer to foot the bill for Senator Van Hollen advocating for terrorists. Leader Thune, we hope you will refuse to allow Senator Van Hollen’s expenses to come out of patriotic Americans’ tax dollars.

Additionally in advocating for terrorists, Senator Van Hollen also has been violating the Logan Act. As you know, Logan Act prohibits unauthorized citizens from negotiating with foreign governments that have a dispute with the United States. Its purpose is to prevent private individuals from interfering in diplomatic relations. By his own admission, Senator Van Hollen was in El Salvador meeting with leaders of the Salvadorian government to attempt to secure Mr. Garcia’s release. 3 It is hard to imagine a more hostile intrusion into U.S. foreign policy than attempting to smuggle a foreign enemy combatant into the United States.

If this behavior does not violate the Senate’s rules on prohibition on actions that bring discredit upon the institution, we are not sure what does. For Senator Van Hollen’s blatant violation of the Logan Act and attempt to smuggle a terrorist into the United States, we call upon Senators Lankford and Coons to open an Ethics Committee investigation of Senator Van Hollen with an eye towards expelling him from the body.

Thank you for your attention to this matter and we look forward to your prompt attention to Senator Van Hollen’s reprehensible conduct.

Sincerely,
Thomas Jones
President, American Accountability Foundation