A major reason why Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-El Salvador) undertook his much-publicized trip to El Salvador in search of a photo-op with MS-13 gang member Kilmar Abrego Garcia seems to have been to catapult himself from the Senate’s back bench to the front ranks of Democrat movers and shakers. And he certainly has gotten everyone talking about him, even if most of them are just pointing out what a fool he has made of himself. And now the story of Van Hollen’s El Salvador misadventure has gotten even worse.
Why is Van Hollen doing this? He doesn’t seem to be contemplating a run for president in 2028, as there is an inconvenient fact in his past: he was born in Karachi, Pakistan, while his father was in the foreign service.
Still, if Kamala Harris continues to falter, and AOC decides to wait until 2032 or 2064 to launch her presidential campaign, and California is just too much of a smoking ruin to make Gavin Newsom’s candidacy plausible, who knows? Maybe the same people who made sure that concerns about Barack Obama’s background were dismissed as “racist” could make Van Hollen’s little natural born citizen problem disappear. 2028 could turn out to be Chris Van Hollen’s year. After all, Karl Marx and Uncle Joe Stalin are unavailable, and the field is open.
Whatever his ultimate plans may be, Van Hollen has staked his career on his white-knight act in the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whose membership in MS-13 has now been clearly established. Whether he is eligible to run for president or not, and whether or not he even wants to do so, Van Hollen has bet the farm on the proposition that Democrats hate America so much that they will rally behind a deported wife-beating gang member solely because that gang member has gotten on the wrong side of Donald Trump. Van Hollen is clearly banking on the idea that he can be the left’s next hero by bringing this violent criminal back to the United States.
That’s about all he’s banking, however. To the surprise of absolutely no one, Van Hollen has now admitted that he did not pay for his El Salvador jaunt, or those famous margaritas, out of his own commitment to the Hate-America cause. Rather, the ones who shelled out for this expensive photo-op were none other than you and I, the American taxpayer.
The Daily Caller reported Monday that Van Hollen has now admitted that taxpayers forked over the cash for his trip to see the gang member. Shannon Bream pressed him about funding on Fox News Sunday, and said that the ill-advised grandstanding jaunt was an “officially cleared, you know, congressional trip.” Bream followed up: “So taxpayer dollars?” And Van Hollen came clean: “Yes, like every other trip.”
The Caller adds that Van Hollen “defended his use of government funds for the trip, arguing that he wasn’t vouching for one person, but standing up for due process rights under the Constitution.” So people who ignored due process in order to enter the country simply have to have it, at taxpayer expense, if anyone tries to make them leave. Got it.
Related: Dem Congressman Ratchets Up the Hysteria, Claims That Trump Could Deport Anyone
Let’s also remember, as the Caller notes, that the man Van Hollen and the media are trying to sell as a “Maryland dad” and an innocent victim of the evil Trump is really something else altogether: “Court records and a DOJ Gang Field Interview Sheet show the Salvadoran national was detained in 2019 with two MS-13 ranking members, wearing gang-affiliated clothing and identified as a member by a confidential informant. Two immigration judges later labeled him a public safety threat and a ‘verified member’ of the gang.”
Van Hollen’s use of taxpayer funds to meet with this “Maryland dad” make him even more of a typical Democrat. He wants the American people to suffer the presence of violent criminals such as Kilmar Abrego Garcia, but he won’t have to; he can afford to live in a house in a placid area that is out of general danger, and to hire private security should he choose to do so. He freely spends our money for his political grandstanding, and expects us to thank him for it, because after all, the most important thing any politician can do is stand up to Donald Trump.
Chris Van Hollen is, in short, an arrogant, entitled elitist, living high on the taxpayer dime. In other words, he is a typical Democrat.
