WASHINGTON — President Trump’s pick to lead the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has blown up denials from liberal media outlets that purported MS-13 member Kilmar Abrego Garcia is not sporting tattoos for the gang.
DEA administrator-designate Terry Cole quickly disabused members of the Senate Judiciary Committee of the notion during his Wednesday confirmation hearing.
“Based on your time as a DEA agent in the field, particularly in Mexico, these tattoos are consistent with MS-13 associations?” asked Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), holding up a picture of Abrego Garcia’s inked-up knuckles.
“Yes, sir, that’s correct,” Cole answered, having earlier said the tats “suggest that he’s an MS-13 member — that those are his markings, that’s his brand.”
“Do you know of any other set of combinations that would suggest some other organization this represents?” Graham followed up.
“With this particular one, no sir,” the DEA nom affirmed.
During a heated interview with ABC News that aired Tuesday night, Trump had pushed back when anchor Terry Moran claimed that pictures previously shared by the White House of the alleged MS-13 gang member were photo-shopped.
“That was Photoshop?” the president said in disbelief. “Terry, you’re not being very nice.”
“Wait a minute, he had ‘MS-13’ on his knuckles,” Trump also said.
Moran only offered that the tattoos’ significance was “as clear as it can be” at this point and offered to “take a look” at them again following their sit-down.
The ABC anchor also acknowledged there were “some tattoos that were interpreted that way.”
The president had posted a photo on X April 18 with the characters “M,” “S,” “1,” and “3” superimposed over four knuckles with the symbols of a marijuana leaf, smiley face, cross and skull on Abrego Garcia’s left hand.
“This is the hand of the man that the Democrats feel should be brought back to the United States, because he is such ‘a fine and innocent person,’” Trump wrote.
“They said he is not a member of MS-13, even though he’s got MS-13 tattooed onto his knuckles, and two Highly Respected Courts found that he was a member of MS-13, beat up his wife, etc,” he added, in a post that has since been shared widely by his critics.
Lefty outlets like The New York Times, The Washington Post, CBS News and other fact-checking sites have downplayed details about Abrego Garcia’s MS-13 affiliation — referring to him, at times, as just a “Maryland man” — as well as the use of tattoos in identifying potential gang members.
Cole affirmed Wednesday that the sequence of the symbols on Abrego Garcia’s hand would not be used by any other gangs.
“Are you familiar with MS-13? Briefly, what are they?” Graham asked Cole in the hearing.
“They’re a terrorist organization,” Cole responded, adding that the gang was involved with “extortion, kidnapping, drugs, intimidation, money laundering.”
Others have pointed to photos of Abrego Garcia’s wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, covering up her husband’s hand in TikTok posts promoting a GoFundMe account for their family that has raked in $265,916.
An ICE source previously told The Post that Abrego Garcia would have needed to get a “13” tattoo to become part of the notorious gang while living in Maryland.
However, when asked about the speculation online regarding the images inked on Abrego Garcia’s hands, the source said: “I’ve never heard of those resemblances being made.”
“The best answer would be from informants and/or members within CECOT,” the source added. “Once he is in there, he cannot deny affiliation.”
Abrego Garcia had languished in the El Salvador megaprison for weeks after being deported by the Trump administration — despite an order from an immigration judge barring his removal to that nation in 2019.
The Supreme Court later ordered the administration to “facilitate” his return to the US — but cabinet officials like Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem have said that would only lead to him being deported again to another country.
Abrego Garcia has since been shuttled to a lower-security facility in the Central American nation, which is taking in alleged US-designated foreign terror group members from MS-13 and Tren de Aragua by the hundreds after signing a $6 million agreement with Trump’s State Department.
