Mexico’s president is facing an investigation for disclosing a journalist’s phone number
Mexico’s Institute for Freedom of Information, a government agency, said Thursday it would launch an investigation into the president’s disclosure on national television of the personal cell phone number of a New York Times journalist who had reported on an investigation into possible links between drug traffickers and close allies of the president.
The investigation focuses on an action by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador during a televised news conference Thursday that left many stunned in Mexico, one of the deadliest countries in the world for journalists. At least 128 journalists have been killed in Mexico since 2006, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
At the news conference, Mr. López Obrador read from an email from Natalie Kitroeff, The Times bureau chief for Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, seeking comment for a article which revealed that U.S. law enforcement officials had spent years investigating claims that allies of Mr. López Obrador had met and taken millions of dollars from drug cartels.
In addition to identifying Ms. Kitroeff by name, Mr. López Obrador gave her phone number.
“This amounts to doxxing, is illegal under Mexican privacy laws and puts reporters at risk,” Jan-Albert Hootsen, Mexico’s representative for the Committee to Protect Journalists, said on X, the social media platform.
Mexico’s National Institute for Transparency, Access to Information and Protection of Personal Data, or INAI, said in a statement rack that its investigation would seek to determine whether Mr. López Obrador had violated Mexican data protection laws. The institute manages the Mexican information system, which was created more than twenty years ago to make government operations more transparent and prevent abuse of power.
Mr. López Obrador, whose six-year term ends this year, has long maintained a confrontational relationship with the news media and regularly attacks journalists by name at his morning news conferences.
The action against the journalist from The Times follows for weeks to attack at a ProPublica reporter, which came after the news organization published a story last month detailing an earlier investigation into allegations that drug cartels donated millions to Mr. López Obrador’s first presidential campaign, in 2006, which he lost. The president called the reporter, Tim Golden, a “pawn” and “a mercenary in the employ” of the Drug Enforcement Administration.
In addition, The Times’ report Thursday revealed a more recent investigation during Mr. López Obrador’s presidency, which began in 2018, in which U.S. law enforcement officials investigated claims that confidants of Mr. López Obrador had received millions of dollars from drug cartels. The article cited US data and three people familiar with the matter.
“This is a disturbing and unacceptable tactic from a world leader at a time when threats against journalists are increasing,” The New York Times said in a statement. rack Thursday in response to Mr. López Obrador’s press conference.
The United States never opened a formal investigation into Mr. López Obrador, and officials involved ultimately suspended the probe after concluding that the U.S. government had little appetite to pursue accusations against the leader of a key U.S. ally to make.
During their investigation, US officials identified possible links between the cartels and Mr López Obrador’s allies and advisers after he came to power, but found no direct links between the president himself and criminal groups.