Democratic lawmakers denounce Trump’s support for Colombia’s far-right candidate De la Espriella and call for an investigation

A group of Democratic members of Congress on Wednesday sent a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, and Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to express their “grave concern about the brazen interference of senior U.S. officials, including President Trump, in Colombia’s presidential election.” A couple of weeks earlier, Trump had voiced his “total endorsement” for Abelardo de la Espriella, the far-right candidate who this Sunday could win the runoff and become the country’s next president, if he defeats the leftist candidate Iván Cepeda.

According to the letter, reviewed exclusively by EL PAÍS, De la Espriella, who tops the polls, has “a profoundly troubling record that appears to run counter to U.S. interests and potentially to U.S. laws. Rather than campaigning for him, our government should be examining his ties to a terrorist-designated organization and an accused money launderer, and possible financial improprieties related to Florida-based companies and real estate transactions,” reads the document, put forward by Jesús Chuy García (Illinois), a House Democrat, and signed, among 10 other leading members of the party’s progressive wing, by Greg Casar (Texas), Rashida Tlaib (Míchigan), Nydia Velasquez (New York) and Pramila Jayapal (Washington).

The lawmakers point first to the far-right politician’s “close relations with multiple leaders from the paramilitary drug-trafficking organization known as the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC).” This group, designated by the U.S. government in 2001 as a foreign terrorist organization, is accused of massacres, murder, disappearance, torture, sexual violence and large-scale drug trafficking affecting the United States and other countries, among other crimes. Two decades ago the AUC negotiated with the Colombian government, which later extradited most of its leaders to the United States, accusing them of continuing to commit crimes after signing a peace agreement.

The letter recalls that De la Espriella “founded and led an organization that was reportedly financed by the AUC to broaden its social and political influence.” It also notes that he opposed Colombia’s 2016 peace agreement, “campaigned to block the extradition of paramilitary leaders to the U.S. where they were facing drug-trafficking charges, and pressured the Colombian government and congress to push for pardons for AUC leaders in order to promote impunity for paramilitary crimes.”

“Several of his former clients have accused him of having pocketed funds allegedly intended to be used for bribing key judicial actors, and some of his associates have been credibly implicated in wire fraud,” the letter says. “Moreover, he and his spouse [Ana Lucía Pineda] are connected to at least 14 Florida-based apparent shell companies and a number of multi-million-dollar Florida real estate purchases involving funds whose source is not clear. There is evidence that at least one of these transactions may have been funded in part by Mr. Saab, who is currently under indictment for money laundering.”

The letter refers to a person accused of money laundering, namely Alex Saab, a Colombian-Venezuelan recently handed over by Venezuelan authorities to the United States to face charges in the Southern District of Florida for alleged money-laundering offenses. De la Espriella was Saab’s lawyer in Colombia for several years and, he has said, distanced himself from his client when he verified Saab’s closeness to the Chavista regime, a connection the criminal defense lawyer has always questioned.

In addition to being an alleged frontman for Nicolás Maduro — the Venezuelan president who is currently in a New York prison with his wife, Cilia Flores, awaiting trial in the United States after being captured in Caracas in January — evidence links Saab to the source of the funds De la Espriella used to buy a property in Florida: an apartment in the exclusive Brickell area of Miami.

The candidate’s properties

It was the first of seven properties he has acquired over the years, directly or through companies. His mother-in-law owns another one. After reviewing public records, Jake Johnston of the Center for Economic and Policy Research concluded that since 2014 the current far-right presidential candidate bought and sold four properties and now owns three. In 2021, two companies linked to the lawyer sold the Brickell apartment, a house in Doral and another on Coral Way, and the lawyer and his wife bought a house in Pinecrest, Miami, in 2021 for nearly $3.5 million.

In 2023, his company SGS Investments Global purchased another home in Doral, near Miami, and in 2025 De la Espriella and Pineda bought another house in Boca Raton for $1.6 million. Regina Arauchan, Pineda’s mother, owns one in the residential neighborhood of Country Walk.

The signatory members of Congress concede that De la Espriella’s U.S. real estate assets may have been legally acquired, but they argue that “his significant ties to Mr. Saab and paramilitary figures, suspicious transactions involving the possible flow of illicit funds into the U.S., and other credible allegations of criminal conduct warrant significant scrutiny and investigation by our government.”

The criminal defense lawyer and businessman holds dual U.S. and Colombian citizenship, and also Italian citizenship by birth. He obtained U.S. citizenship in February 2023 after completing the naturalization process in Florida. That fact sparked a legal debate in Colombia, where a group of prominent jurists argued it constituted a disqualification from running for president, even though the Constitution allows any Colombian by birth to hold the presidency, even if they have other nationalities. Other jurists rejected that interpretation and, despite a lawsuit that has just begun making its way through the courts, the candidate has carried on with his presidential bid.

In their letter, the U.S. lawmakers also describe as “particularly alarming” that Trump and several Republican members of Congress have “openly endorsed” De la Espriella and that the U.S. president “has also implied that if Mr. De la Espriella loses, Colombia may lose the support of the United States, its most important trade and security partner. This direct interference by U.S. officials in another country’s democratic elections is inconsistent with longstanding principles of national sovereignty and non-interference, as well as international law,” states the letter, which reached Rubio, Bessent and Blanche four days before the elections in which the Colombia votes to replace the first leftist president in its recent history, Gustavo Petro.

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