“I ask Colombia to stop litigation that could damage relations with the US”: John Rendon

This Wednesday, November 11, the American businessman John Rendon, said it is necessary to avoid litigation so as not to affect relationships between Colombia and the United States.

The contractor issued a statement, after in the morning he was mentioned in Caracol Radio as one of the people who supposedly met Francisco Santos to support the Donald Trump campaign.

Through a statement, Rendon said that he asked his lawyers “to contact the Colombian legal department involved in the case to urge them to refrain from litigation and rhetoric that could create the risk of damaging the relationship” between Colombia and the United States.

He argued that politics ceased to be the “Art of compromise to become the art of annihilation. This phenomenon is as corrosive as corruption for the bases of freedom.

On Wednesday morning, the former President of the Republic Juan Manuel Santos, in dialogue with the journalist Yamid Amat, responded to the Colombian ambassador to the United States, Francisco Santos, who assured that he would sue the former ruler for libel and slander.

I would give you some advice as a cousin, don’t go wasting money, lawyers are very expensive.

A few days ago, in a statement to the W Radio station, the former president assured that the Colombian ambassador in Washington, Francisco Santos, spoke with a Pentagon contractor to ask him how he could help the president of the United States, Donald Trump, who was he was campaigning for his reelection.

“There is a strategist, a Pentagon contractor, who has helped Colombia a lot in past governments. He worked with my government, he worked with the government of Uribe, of Pastrana and he has very good relations with the political parties in the United States. The ambassador called that person and asked how he could help Trump “Juan Manuel Santos assured during the interview.

Before those statements, Ambassador Francisco Santos denied that he had campaigned for Trump’s re-election and announced, in an interview with journalists Vicky Dávila and Salud Hernández, a complaint for libel and slander against former President Santos.

“Faced with the accusations of the president, I am not going to say anything, but my lawyer, Iván Cancino, is currently filing a criminal complaint (…) since Juan Manuel is a common citizen now, he will have to answer before a judge and The judge will have to ask him the corresponding questions, ”said the Colombian representative in Washington.

Questioned by the journalist Yamid Amat in this regard, Juan Manuel Santos assured that “it is a demand that has neither head nor tail”, and in the face of his cousin’s statements, he reiterated that “he knows perfectly well that what I said is totally true ”.

Juan Manuel Santos stated that he considers that it is not necessary to take the case to court.

“The facts are there, if Mr. Cancino or Pacho himself calls me, I will tell them exactly who was the person who gave me the information, in what terms he gave me that information, and it was not a complaint, it was rather a Warning, because the person who gave me that information did it trying to help the country and to help relations between the two countries, because he is a person who knows Colombia very well, knows the United States very well and greatly appreciates that bipartisan policy that we have been building with so much effort over the years. With a little call, as they say, through informal channels, I give them all the information so that they avoid the embarrassment of losing a lawsuit ”.

The former president also recommended that Francisco Santos withdraw from the embassy of Colombia in the United States before January 21 (when the new president must take office Joe biden) “So that you do not suddenly suffer some shameful event personally, which will have repercussions in the country and I know why I tell you.”

According to the former Colombian governor, there is “some discomfort” in the environment of the president-elect of the United States with what happened “and I would not expose myself to some diplomatic snub, because that suits no one, that is the humble advice that I give him. to the ambassador, my cousin Pacho, “concluded Juan Manuel Santos.

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