Van Hollen Deflects Twice After CNN’s Dana Bash Asks Point Blank If Abrego Garcia Is a ‘Member of MS-13’

CNN’s Dana Bash pressed Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) over allegations that Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a man the Trump administration deported to a prison in El Salvador, is a gang member.

The senator twice deflected from the question and said that answering it would be playing a game that President Donald Trump wants to force Democrats into.

Van Hollen traveled to El Salvador last week to visit Abrego Garcia, who was deported in March by the Trump administration despite being granted legal status in 2019.

The Supreme Court has ordered the administration to facilitate his return to the US, but the White House has yet to comply.

Abrego Garcia has been accused by the Trump administration of being a member of MS-13 and engaging in human trafficking. The allegations have not been proven in court. His legal team denies the claims.

Bash questioned Van Hollen directly on Sunday’s edition of CNN’s State of the Union.

“Now, President Trump says that some of Abrego Garcia’s tattoos signify that he’s a member of MS-13,” Bash said. “In 2019, police alleged a confidential informant claimed that Abrego Garcia was an active MS-13 member. His wife and his attorney deny that, of course. Can you say with absolute certainty that he is not, nor has he ever been a member of the MS-13 gang? And did you ask him point-blank?”

Van Hollen did not answer the question directly.

“Well, Dana, what Donald Trump is trying to do here is change the subject,” he replied. “The subject at hand is that he and his administration are defying a court order to give Abrego Garcia his due process rights. They are trying to litigate on social media what they should be doing in the courts. They need to put up or shut up in the courts.”

Van Hollen referred to a federal court ruling on the matter.

“Let me tell you—and I decided to write this down so I could be absolutely accurate as to what federal district court Judge Xinis said about these allegations by the Trump administration: ‘No evidence linking Abrego Garcia to MS-13 or any terrorist activity has been presented to the court.'”

Bash responded by pressing Van Hollen further on the issue.

She said, “But since you were the one person to have met with him and since this is a thing, you say, on social media, it’s what we hear from Donald Trump and Republicans every day all day long, you didn’t ask him?”

Van Hollen replied, “I didn’t ask him that because I know what his answer is.” He added:

And that goes to the heart of this issue because he’s been denied his due process rights. And Donald Trump is trying to change the subject. And when people start asking about – asking that question, in my view, they’re falling into the president’s trap, because what the president wants to do is talk about that, as if we can’t all fight gang violence, which I have been doing for much longer than Donald Trump, right?

His argument is you can’t fight that and at the same time uphold people’s constitutional rights. That’s a very dangerous view. And if we deny the constitutional rights of this one man, it threatens the constitutional rights of everybody in America.

Watch above via CNN.