Soon after he took up his post in El Salvador, U.S. Ambassador Ronald Johnson forged an unusually close relationship with the country’s president.
President Trump had nominated Mr. Johnson in 2019 as his ambassador to the country shortly after the White House declared war on El Salvador’s notoriously violent gangs, including MS-13.
The relationship between Mr. Johnson and the Salvadoran president, Nayib Bukele, was close enough that it worried some officials. The two posted photos on social media of their families spending weekends together and tweets highlighting their “personal friendship.”
That bond remained firm even in 2020 when the Salvadoran president was accused of secretly colluding with local gangs, seven current and former officials said. Mr. Johnson defended him and publicly dismissed a letter from U.S. Republican congressmen raising concerns about the claim.
Then, without clear reason, a U.S. Embassy staff member investigating the government’s potential ties to the gangs was sent home early.
The ambassador’s actions seemed to contradict the interests of the Trump administration, argued three current and former American officials who worked directly with Mr. Johnson. He appeared more focused on protecting a foreign leader, the officials said, than on dismantling the Salvadoran criminal organizations operating both there and within the United States.
Now Mr. Johnson has been tapped again by President Trump, this time to be the U.S. ambassador to Mexico. He was confirmed on Wednesday by a Senate vote of 49-46.
In an emailed response, Mr. Johnson described his relationship with Mr. Bukele as “cordial,” something short of the bond suggested by posts like one showing them eating crab together, wearing grins and giant bibs.
Mr. Johnson also said he was committed to dismantling Salvadoran gangs. “The dismantling of the vicious MS-13 gang, and other Salvadoran gangs, began during my tenure and it continues today under the leadership of President Trump,” he said.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment, but clearly Mr. Trump was supportive enough of Mr. Johnson’s performance in El Salvador to offer him a new — and more significant — post.
As a veteran military and C.I.A. officer, Mr. Johnson had a long career stretching from Latin America to Asia, but his stint in El Salvador, from September 2019 until January 2021, was his only diplomatic post.
Mexico is a much bigger assignment, a key U.S. trading partner, and Mr. Johnson will arrive there at one of the tensest chapters in the country’s relations with the United States.
Mr. Trump has threatened to send troops into Mexican territory to destroy the country’s drug cartels, which his administration recently designated as terrorist organizations. Mexico’s president warns that any unilateral American military action would be a violation of sovereignty.
Mr. Johnson’s experience with covert C.I.A. operations may be why he was picked for the ambassadorship, those close to him say, to defend a policy he knows well.
“His experience as a Green Beret and a seasoned C.I.A. officer in Latin America and elsewhere means he knows the issues, on defense security and especially counter terrorism,” said Mick Mulroy, a senior Pentagon official in the first Trump administration and a friend of Mr. Johnson.
Yet during his time in El Salvador, two U.S. Embassy staffers and two senior American diplomats said they warned Mr. Johnson that he and his wife were getting too close to Mr. Bukele, but that the ambassador brushed off those concerns. Mr. Johnson even told colleagues he was the godfather to Mr. Bukele’s oldest daughter, according to two former diplomats.
Mr. Johnson denied receiving such warnings and that he was the godfather of Mr. Bukele’s daughter.
Mr. Bukele created a national award for Mr. Johnson just before he departed as ambassador, which remains El Salvador’s highest honor and has only been given twice.
While cultivating relationships is part of the job for diplomats, they are typically discouraged from forging personal ties with politicians in the countries where they serve, out of a concern that those bonds could be used to manipulate them.
“We need our ambassadors to have a close relationship with heads of state, but we need to make sure they are serving the interest of the American people first,” said Eric L. Olson, an analyst on Central America.
Mr. Johnson also clashed with his staff over the involvement of his wife, Alina Johnson, in diplomatic affairs, according to three American officials.
The ambassador would sometimes introduce Ms. Johnson as his “co-ambassador” in official meetings, confusing Salvadoran officials, according to two U.S. Embassy officials and a local businessman who met with them. Mr. Johnson would also sometimes reject the embassy’s official translator to instead have his Cuban-born wife translate formal meetings for him, according to two embassy staffers. His wife also told embassy staffers that she weighed in on Salvadoran legislative affairs with Mr. Bukele, they added.
Mr. Johnson denied those claims and said his wife was “well aware of a spouses’ role” in his response to The New York Times.
In 2020, Mr. Bukele was accused by the Salvadoran media outlet El Faro of secretly colluding with the country’s gangs, agreeing to give perks and better treatment to imprisoned gang members, like visits from prostitutes and cellphones. In exchange, the report said, the gangs would reduce homicides and give their support to Mr. Bukele’s party in the coming election.
Such negotiations would violate Salvadoran laws, which classified the gangs as terrorist organizations and prohibited politicians from negotiating with them. When Mr. Bukele became president in 2019, he vowed he would go hard on the gangs, like no leader before.
The El Faro investigation challenged Mr. Bukele’s tough-on-crime message.
It also caught the attention of six Republican congressmen, who wrote a scathing letter to the Salvadoran president saying they were “troubled by reports that the government of El Salvador could be legitimizing MS-13.”
Mr. Bukele dismissed the letter on national television, saying the U.S. representatives who signed it “don’t represent 5 percent or 3 percent of Congress.” Mr. Johnson echoed Mr. Bukele, underscoring that the letter was signed by a “small portion” of Congress.
Shortly after, El Salvador’s attorney general raided the bureau of prisons, seizing hard drives, log books and CCTV footage, according to media reports at the time. Pressure was building on Mr. Bukele as it seemed Salvadoran and U.S. prosecutors were preparing separate indictments to prosecute his government, according to two American officials.
That is when an American diplomat investigating allegations of a secret deal with the gangs was abruptly sent back to the United States, according to U.S. and Salvadoran officials.
When he landed in Washington, the diplomat was told that both the Salvadoran government and his own boss, Mr. Johnson, had wanted him out of country, according to three people who debriefed the diplomat upon his return.
“Given what we know about the nature of the Bukele administration and its dealings with the gangs, to send someone home in the midst of their work on an investigation like that would be disruptive,” said Mark Feierstein who worked under several American administrations since the 1990s.
Last month in a Senate committee hearing, Mr. Johnson said the U.S. official investigating the administration’s relationship with the gangs was dismissed because he was having “unauthorized meetings” with journalists, but provided few details. Mr. Johnson denied having anything to do with the decision and said he had “deferred to his boss” on whether to send the diplomat home, without elaborating.
In his response to The Times, Mr. Johnson said he had “neither dismissed or professionally penalized U.S. Embassy staffers.”
But three of the diplomat’s superiors were upset that he was sent home early, according to people who spoke with them at the time.
The ousting of the American diplomat sent a chill through both the U.S. Embassy and the Salvadoran investigative unit probing allegations of government collusion with the gangs, American officials said.
After that, Mr. Bukele’s government seemed to hinder U.S. efforts aimed at dismantling Salvadoran gangs. In November 2021, the government secretly freed a top MS-13 leader from prison, despite a U.S. extradition request, according to a Justice Department detention order reviewed by The Times.
Mr. Bukele’s government did not respond to questions for this story but has previously denied links to the gangs.
Officials wonder why Mr. Johnson was such a defender of Mr. Bukele.
Some contend that Mr. Johnson’s judgment was skewed by friendship. Others point to Mr. Bukele’s success in lowering homicides across El Salvador, which had been dubbed the murder capital of the world before killings dropped 45 percent from 2019 to 2020.
Still others point to Mr. Bukele’s deal with the first Trump administration to require Central American migrants traveling through El Salvador to seek refuge there instead of the United States, signed weeks after Mr. Johnson arrived. According to two former American officials, the ambassador regularly told embassy staffers not to pursue any projects that may upset Mr. Bukele and jeopardize the agreement, which he said was an important bilateral achievement.
Mr. Johnson’s tenure as ambassador ended in January 2021, when President Biden was sworn in. The following month, Mr. Bukele’s party won a majority in Congress and swiftly dissolved the Salvadoran investigative unit looking into the gang negotiations. That affected a separate Justice Department investigation, according to two former American officials.
Still, in December of that year, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned two senior Salvadoran officials after its own investigations concluded they had orchestrated covert agreements with gang leaders.
A few months later, any agreement between the gangs and the government seemed to collapse, leading to a killing spree in the country’s capital that left dozens of people dead.
The government quickly imposed a state of emergency that remains in place today, mobilizing police and the military forces to carry out mass arrests.
Although no longer holding any public office, Mr. Johnson continued to advocate for Mr. Bukele, even as Mr. Bukele started referring to himself as the world’s “coolest dictator.”
Mr. Johnson ratcheted up support for him during his re-election last year, according to a friend of Mr. Johnson and an American official. This included enlisting notable Republicans like Donald Trump Jr. to attend the inauguration. (Legal scholars say Mr. Bukele violated his country’s Constitution by running again).
Last month, the Trump administration sent migrants to El Salvador as part of a new deal to house suspected Venezuelan and Salvadoran gang members in El Salvador’s mega prison. As part of the agreement, Mr. Bukele has pressed Washington to return MS-13 leaders in U.S. custody to El Salvador, though only one has been sent back one so far.
“If the U.S. sends back MS-13 leaders to El Salvador, it would be a disaster for ongoing Justice Department investigations into the gangs and the deals they struck with Bukele’s government,” said Mr. Olson, the analyst. “Bukele has every interest in making sure that their information isn’t used in U.S. court cases or prosecutions and he will lock them up and throw away the key.”
Gabriel Labrador contributed reporting from San Salvador. Alain Delaquérière contributed research.