This Puerto Rico Drugs-for-Votes Scheme Is Even Worse Than it Sounds

0:00 we've got to talk about this alleged conspiracy

0:01 that goes so deep that at one end,

0:03 it involves a Puerto Rican prison gang, and at the other end,

0:05 you have the president of the United States, Donald J.

0:07 Trump.

0:08 and if this ProPublica reports.

0:09 Correct, they're still trying to bury the whole thing under the rug.

0:11 right.

0:12 As far as how this whole thing worked, according to investigators, first,

0:14 you had a drone that would fly over a prison

0:16 in Puerto Rico and drop off a package of narcotics.

0:18 then staff at the prison would help get the drugs inside.

0:20 And distribute them while acting as lookouts.

0:22 then finally leaders of a prison gang known as Los Tiburon is or the sharks.

0:25 They would sell the drugs to other inmates.

0:27 But then also here's the twist.

0:28 they didn't sell them for money.

0:29 At least not always.

0:31 Instead, they sold them for votes.

0:32 specifically votes for the island's now Republican governor,

0:35 Jennifer Gonzalez Colon, who I'm going to refer to by her nickname, Joe.

0:39 she's got this long history in Republican politics.

0:41 She served as the party chair for the territory,

0:43 represented Puerto Rico in Congress,

0:44 and actually did a lot of work with Latinos for Trump.

0:46 and so in January of 2025, when she took office as governor,

0:49 you had Trump congratulating her, and she pushed for a statue

0:52 of him to be built at the Capitol building in San Juan.

0:54 a while, you know, for a president who claimed

0:56 to be concerned about drug trafficking and election integrity,

0:58 Trump didn't seem to worried about the allegations

1:00 that were coming out of Puerto Rico.

1:01 Right.

1:01 Even though the investigation implicated not just inmates in prison staff,

1:04 but possibly Joe herself.

1:05 even multiple sources telling ProPublica that officials were working toward

1:08 determining whether she or her campaign were involved in the scheme,

1:11 and they found some stuff.

1:11 Stuff like evidence that Joe had spoken to a gang member,

1:14 including a Facebook post in which one gang leader bragged

1:16 about his connection to her, or with him reportedly attaching

1:18 a photo of himself talking to her on WhatsApp at the time

1:21 that she was running in her party's primary for governor.

1:23 so they kept probing into that, you had federal prosecutors beginning

1:25 to prepare an indictment against the people that they had already caught.

1:27 then all of a sudden, everything changes.

1:29 In November of 2024, right after Trump and Joe won their respective elections,

1:33 according to ProPublica, higher ups in the US attorney's office

1:35 in the District of Puerto Rico told the prosecutors

1:37 to exclude the voting related charges against

1:39 the inmates and all charges against the prison staff.

1:41 so even though the drugs were vote

1:42 scheme was described in the indictment that December,

1:44 nobody was charged for and then soon after Trump entered the white House,

1:47 a supervisor to the lead prosecutor reportedly

1:49 told him to stop the investigation altogether.

1:51 which, you know, kind of looks like Trump's DOJ is covering up

1:53 an illegal scheme to buy votes where a Trump loving Republican governor.

1:56 with that, if you ask the DOJ itself,

1:58 they point out that the order to exclude election related

2:00 charges that was given before Trump took office, which is true.

2:03 but it's also true that the U.S.

2:04 attorney for the District of Puerto Rico was appointed by Trump and reportedly

2:07 enjoyed a friendly working relationship with Pam

2:09 Bondi when they were both in Florida.

2:10 plus, if you ask people who were involved in the case,

2:12 they say that the timing with Trump's

2:13 election victory was clearly not a coincidence.

2:15 with one saying before the election,

2:17 it was definitely full steam ahead after the election, that all changed.

2:20 any one another, adding, we invested so much effort to make a difference.

2:23 We're frustrated, but there's nothing we can do.

2:25 and then a third explaining.

2:25 It was like you're watching a puppet show, but you can't see the strings,

2:28 You know, what you're seeing isn't telling the whole story.

2:31 There was some kind of invisible hand.

2:32 and then something that made it even weirder

2:34 is that a magistrate judge in a different

2:35 case last October mentioned what they called

2:37 an unrelated white collar investigation involving the governor.

2:40 Puerto Rico.

2:40 but the U.S.

2:41 Attorney's office denied that any such investigation even exists.

2:44 so really, whatever's going on it,

2:45 it doesn't seem like we're going to get much clarity from this DOJ.

2:48 one of the crazy things is it wasn't just inmates exchanging drugs for votes.

2:51 the allegations were even more fucked up than that.

2:53 reportedly, if the inmates didn't go along with it,

2:55 there were punishments that included withholding food or forcing them

2:57 to sit with their arms folded while they were beaten and kicked.

2:59 and at least according to the indictment, many of these inmates were addicted.

3:02 So the only way they could keep

3:04 from going into withdrawal was to vote for Diego.

3:06 It's all just so insane.

3:07 And yet, rather than seemingly trying

3:08 to prosecute and investigate these actual crimes,

3:10 you have Tulsi Gabbard seizing Puerto Rico's voting machines.

3:13 actually with that, we then got to talk about what Trump's

3:15 minions are doing with our elections back on the mainland as well.