MEXICO CITY – Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum on Wednesday denied a NCS report that the CIA was finishing up lethal operations in Mexican territory, accusing the U.S.-based information group of making an attempt to “hurt the government and the people of Mexico.”
NCS reported Tuesday that the CIA facilitated a focused assassination of a member of the Sinaloa cartel on a freeway exterior Mexico City, fueling a firestorm in Mexico. The New York Times later reported that Mexican forces carried out the assault and the CIA supplied planning and assist.
Sheinbaum referred to as the NCS report a “lie.” Asked concerning the New York Times report throughout her morning press briefing, she referred to as it “a fiction the size of the universe.”
Liz Lyons, a spokesperson for the CIA, additionally lambasted the NCS report, posting on X that “this is false and salacious reporting that serves as nothing more than a PR campaign for the cartels and puts American lives at risk.”
A NCS spokesperson stated the CIA had been introduced with particulars of the report previous to publication and had declined to remark. While the community didn’t straight tackle Sheinbaum’s statements, it stated it stands by its reporting.
“After publication, CIA spokesperson Liz Lyons released a statement to NCS saying, ‘This is false and salacious reporting that serves as nothing more than a PR campaign for the cartels and puts American lives at risk,’ without specifying what aspect of the reporting is false,” the NCS spokesperson stated.
The New York Times additionally stood by its reporting, with Charlie Stadtlander, govt director of media relations and communications, saying in an emailed assertion that the publication “remains confident in the accuracy of what we reported.”
While Sheinbaum’s mentor and predecessor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, regularly attacked journalists in his morning news briefings, going as far as to dox critical reporters, Sheinbaum has taken a more measured tone in the face of criticism.
But the president has been plagued by scandals involving the United States in recent weeks as she comes under pressure to maintain a strong relationship with Washington in the face of renegotiating a free-trade agreement and threats by U.S. President Donald Trump to take action on cartels.
Sheinbaum has underscored Mexico’s sovereignty, a narrative that increasingly has been questioned.
Last month, two CIA agents were killed in a car crash along with local Mexican investigators on their return from an anti-narcotics operation in the northern state of Chihuahua. Sheinbaum said she had no knowledge of the operation, and Mexican and U.S. authorities contradicted themselves for days.
A week later, a New York court charged Sinaloa’s governor — a high-ranking member of Sheinbaum’s party and ally of López Obrador — with drug trafficking and weapons offenses, accused of aiding in the massive importation of illicit narcotics into the U.S.
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Jocelyn Noveck contributed to this report from New York.
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