Marco Rubio on Sean Penn: Interview ‘Grotesque’ but Legal

Penn’s interview with the Sinaloa cartel chief was published Saturday by Rolling Stone magazine, and an official in Mexico City said Mexican authorities wanted to talk to him and actress Kate del Castillo, who helped arrange the meeting.

A Mexican federal law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not permitted to comment on the issue, told the Associated Press it was the Penn interview that led authorities to Guzman in a rural part of Durango state in October.

Penn’s Rolling Stone story had to be submitted for El Chapo’s approval before publishing, according to an editor’s note at the top of the article, which was posted on the magazine’s website late Saturday.

El Chapo hasn’t done any drugs in the last 20 years, he told Penn.

“El Chapo has said in the past that his worst fear is being extradited to the United States”, said Andrew Selee, an expert on Mexico at the Wilson Center in Washington.

The surreal saga of Guzman, who has twice escaped maximum-security prisons in Mexico, took even more freaky turns beginning Friday, when he was captured by Mexican marines after leading them on a chase through the sewer systems of the coastal city of Los Mochis, in his native state of Sinaloa.

“No, that is false, because the day I don’t exist, it’s not going to decrease in any way at all”.

After a few hours chat, they agree to meet again for a more formal interview, but those plan devolved and the interview ended up being conducted by someone close to El Chapo and with highly modified questions.

The secret link-up helped the authorities discover his whereabouts and Guzman was recaptured.

Penn wrote he met Guzman in person in October, a sit-down meeting that started with a warm hug and lasted seven hours.

In the interview with Penn, Guzman said that he does not believe that he can be held responsible for the high level of drug addiction in the world. They stormed a white house, and found some of El Chapo’s men plus a stash of weapons, including a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.

ABC host George Stephanpoulos, at the conclusion of their interview about the 2016 campaign for the Republican nomination, asked Rubio what he thought of the revelations about Penn. The US considers El Chapo the most powerful drug trafficker in the world.

“I have a fleet of submarines, airplanes, trucks and boats”, he told Penn.

The Mexican attorney general said extradition proceedings are set to begin, but she did not say when.

But he cautioned that there could be a lengthy wait before US prosecutors get their hands on Guzman. After his conviction, he escaped from a maximum security prison in 2001, using a laundry cart, and evaded Mexican authorities for years.

USA officials have long wanted Guzman to be extradited to America, where he has been indicted by several federal grand juries for drug smuggling and murder.

The tracking of cell phones and electronic exchanges among people close to Guzman was critical in his recapture, according to two USA law enforcement officials.