Bukele wanted the contractor out of the country — and in Ambassador Ronald D. Johnson, he had a powerful American friend. Johnson was a former CIA officer and appointee of President Donald Trump serving in his first diplomatic post. He had cultivated a strikingly close relationship with the Salvadoran president. After Bukele provided Johnson with the recordings, the ambassador immediately ordered an investigation that resulted in the contractor’s dismissal.

It was not the only favor Johnson did for Bukele, according to a ProPublica investigation based on a previously undisclosed report by the State Department’s inspector general and interviews with U.S. and Salvadoran officials. The dismissal of the contractor was part of a pattern in which Johnson has been accused of shielding Bukele from U.S. and Salvadoran law enforcement, ProPublica found. Johnson did little to pursue the extradition to the United States of an MS-13 boss who was a potential witness to the secret gang pact and a top target of the FBI-led task force, officials said.