Matt Gaetz would oversee US prisons as AG. He thinks El Salvador’s hardline lockups are a model

CNN

By David Culver and Rachel Clarke, CNN

(CNN) — As he stood inside the echoing hall of the prison, Matt Gaetz seemed impressed.

“There’s a lot more discipline in this prison than we see in a lot of the prisons in the United States,” said Gaetz, then a congressman, now announced as President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for US attorney general.

It was July, and Gaetz — who will oversee the Federal Bureau of Prisons if he becomes attorney general — was visiting El Salvador’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot), where gang leaders and murderers are locked up and from which they are never released.

The prison is a concrete manifestation of the hardline rule of El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele, who is often berated by human rights groups for flouting norms but largely credited inside his country for returning safety to the streets.

“This is the solution” for El Salvador, Gaetz added, in a video released by Bukele. “We think the good ideas in El Salvador actually have legs and can go to other places and help other people be safe and secure and hopeful and prosperous.”

Last month, CNN was the first major US news organization to be granted access to Cecot on a private tour, seeing the recently built fortress where both convicts and some men still facing trial spend 23½ hours a day in bleak group cells, eat a bland meatless diet and have just 30 minutes a day for exercise or Bible class.

It’s one part of Bukele’s upstart transformation of El Salvador that he has achieved by upending the system, giving law enforcement new powers under a rolling state of emergency, getting his nominees to the Supreme Court and then asking that Supreme Court to allow him to run for a previously unconstitutional second term. Bukele is well aware of the emotions he stirs — both positive and negative — and has dubbed himself the “world’s coolest dictator” and now “philosopher king” in his X bio.

Trump has at times both praised and denounced Bukele — when he was in the White House he lauded cooperation with El Salvador’s then-new leader, but he turned critic once he was out of power and focused on immigration, saying Bukele was sending criminals to the US.

But Gaetz appears to be an out-and-out fan. He told Time Magazine he considered Bukele a “kindred spirit,” and the pair greeted each other warmly as Gaetz led other congressmen into Bukele’s office during the July visit. That trip came just a month after Gaetz, Donald Trump Jr. and others traveled to Bukele’s second inauguration.

Gaetz founded a congressional El Salvador caucus with Democratic Rep. Vicente Gonzalez of Texas in July in a rare moment of bipartisanship.

Announcing the new group in the House of Representatives, Gaetz said: “Through the inspiration from El Salvador’s astonishing transformation, the great American rejuvenation can become a reality as well, so that we can experience a triumphant return of safety and prosperity that we once inspired in others.”

Should he face interviews and a Senate confirmation hearing for the position of attorney general, Gaetz may well be asked about his thoughts on Bukele’s approach to crime and criminal justice and how that might influence his position as attorney general. The US could even suggest the El Salvador model be tried across Central and South America, where violence and instability drives many of the migrants heading to the relative safety and prosperity of the US, though there would likely be strong opposition inside and outside those countries.

Last week, even as the State Department lowered its travel advisory for El Salvador, citing a “significant reduction” in crime, it also warned that Bukele’s state of emergency allows authorities to “arrest anyone suspected of gang activity and suspends several constitutional rights.”

The Salvadoran president wasted no time in congratulating Gaetz on his selection as Trump’s AG pick, posting on X, “I knew you were destined to do great things, my friend.”

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