White House questions Sean Penn role in drug kingpin case

[rangerrebew]

 White House questions Sean Penn role in drug kingpin case
Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman

Rolling Stone magazine is reporting that Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman met with Sean Penn in Guzman's hide-out in Mexico months before his recapture. (Alfredo Estrella / AFP/Getty Images)
Michael A. Memoli

A senior White House official described as "maddening" Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman's boasts about sending illegal narcotics to America, but he declined to say Sunday if actor Sean Penn faced potential legal liability for meeting with the fugitive drug kingpin. 

Denis McDonough, the White House chief of staff, was asked on several TV talk shows Sunday about Guzman’s recapture on Friday and the surprising disclosure that Penn had interviewed him at length in October for a potential film project.

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McDonough focused on what he called Guzman’s “braggadocios” comments about how his cartel has distributed illegal drugs throughout the world. 

"I supply more heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana than anybody else in the world,” Guzman told Penn, according to the actor's account in Rolling Stone. “I have a fleet of submarines, airplanes, trucks and boats." 
 

Speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union,” McDonough called the remarks “maddening.” 

“We see a heroin epidemic, opioid addiction epidemic in this country,” he said. “We’re going to stay on top of this with our Mexican counterparts until we get that back in the box. But El Chapo is behind bars and that’s where he should stay.” 

McDonough said he had not read the Rolling Stone interview but had read reports about it. McDonough was asked if the United States would help facilitate Penn being questioned by Mexican law enforcement if they wanted it. 
El Chapo's escape and recapture

“It poses a lot of very interesting questions, both for him and for others involved in this so-called interview,” McDonough said. “I’m not going to get ahead of it.” 

Separately on ABC’s “This Week,” McDonough said he would “let somebody else sort out what Sean Penn did and didn’t do.” 

Republican presidential hopeful Marco Rubio, who also appeared on “This Week,” first brushed off questions about Penn’s role. 

“Sean Penn is not someone I spend a lot of time thinking about,” the Florida senator said. “I didn't even know he was still around. I think he made movies a long time ago or something.” 

Rubio said he hoped that the Mexican government extradites Guzman to the United States. Then he returned to Penn's role in the case. 

“If one of these American actors, who have benefited from the greatness of this country, who have made money from our free enterprise system, want to go fawn all over a criminal and a drug trafficker in their interviews, they have a constitutional right to do it,” he said. “I find it grotesque.” 

A Justice Department spokesman Sunday declined to comment on questions surrounding Penn’s role.


http://www.latimes.com/world/mexico-americas/la-na-sean-penn-guzman-20160110-story.html

[rangerrebew]

The administration may be petrified the truth about Fast & Furious may come out.

[alicewonders]

On this, I totally agree with Rubio.

[flowers]

Wild isn't this?????  Let us see here. Didn't WH know about Penn interviewing Chapo?  Will Penns beloved obama turn on him? 

“We see a heroin epidemic, opioid addiction epidemic in this country,” he said. “We’re going to stay on top of this with our Mexican counterparts until we get that back in the box. But El Chapo is behind bars and that’s where he should stay.” 

There is the money quote IMO..El Chapo sells drugs in USA. He knows who is buying them. Thus reason number 2 to get him to shut up in a supermax. Back in the box. Wow who is more powerful? The US fed gov run by obama? Or El Chapos cartel?  I have a guess who is. 

[flowers]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3394246/Pictures-Sean-Penn-landing-Mexico-meet-El-Chapo-offer-proof-trip-known-monitored-intelligence-agencies.html

Sean Penn has said he has no regrets about his clandestine visit to interview Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman as incredible images emerged of the actor arriving in the country reportedly taken by Mexican intelligence.

In a brief email exchange with The Associated Press, Penn was asked about images published in Mexican news media Monday that appeared to show him and actress Kate Del Castillo arrive ahead of their October visit with Guzman.

'I've got nothin' to hide,' he wrote.
Nothin' to hide: A figure closely resembling Sean Penn can be seen arriving in Mexico in October ahead of his remarkable meeting with Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman in pictures obtained by Mexican newspaper El Universal

Guzman was captured last Friday, more than three months after Penn's October 2 meeting with him in central Mexico and six months after escaping from prison.

Penn did not respond directly to questions on whether it was appropriate for him to submit his Rolling Stone story to Guzman for approval in advance of publication, or whether he took adequate information and operational security measures to protect his source. 

The photos of Penn arriving in Mexico before flying to a jungle camp for the meeting, published by Mexican newspaper El Universal, appear to have been taken with a telephoto lens from long distance. The newspaper said that the pictures were part of a Mexican government intelligence file that it obtained, which would prove the actor was being watched from the moment he landed in the country.

[240B]

I wonder how this is going to affect Penn's life expectancy?

[HAPPY2BME]

The administration may be petrified the truth about Fast & Furious may come out.

======================================

Absolutely.

[Right_in_Virginia]

The administration may be petrified the truth about Fast & Furious may come out.  

Except this administration isn't afraid of anything; not the law, not the people, not the press.

[Right_in_Virginia]

I wonder how this is going to affect Penn's life expectancy?

I'd guess it will be an overall negative.   ^-^

[flowers]

Will his beloved obama turn on Penn?

[mountaineer]

Andrea Peyser writes:

Penn plays El Chumpo

Sean Penn is a tyrant junkie. The leftist Hollywood nitwit palled around with Hugo Chavez, the late Venezuelan president and human-rights violator, and hung out in Iraq with cronies of dictator Saddam Hussein, who was convicted of crimes against humanity and executed by hanging.

So it comes as little surprise that Penn, 55, traveled to Mexico to interview, take selfies and suck down tequila with murderous drug lord Joaquin Guzman Loera, 57 — known as“El Chapo’’ — for Rolling Stone magazine.

Even as he concedes he “may be perceived as protecting criminals,” Madonna’s ex-husband excuses El Chapo’s violent tactics, writing that as drug “consumers’’ (he must be talking about himself, not me) “we are complicit in every murder, and in every corruption of an institution’s ability to protect the quality of life for citizens of Mexico and the United States that comes as a result of our insatiable appetite for illicit narcotics.”

He writes, “As much as anything, it’s a question of relative morality.’’

Seriously?

Well, Penn’s attempt to glorify the bad guy failed miserably. His October interview led Mexican authorities to recapture the escaped prisoner in a shootout. He faces extradition to Brooklyn on 12 murder charges. Penn and Mexican actress Kate del Castillo, who accompanied him on the interview, are under investigation by authorities south of the border — and Penn is being probed here at home, too.

Sean Penn inadvertently did something good for the world.

Thanks, pal!

NY Post