Mexican president Andres Manuel López Obrador shared the contact information of a New York Times journalist during an hours-long press conference on Thursday, drawing swift condemnation from the newspaper over his apparent intimidation tactics.
The journalist, Natalie Kitroeff, had recently requested information from López Obrador regarding a previously unreported U.S. investigation that reportedly discovered ties between the president’s close associates and Mexico’s powerful drug cartels.
Nearly an hour into his press briefing, López Obrador projected Kitroeff’s email to him on a screen behind him, which included a phone number she’d listed to contact her. He read the entire email aloud, including the phone number, pausing occasionally to provide his own commentary. It wasn’t immediately clear whether the phone number was a personal line belonging to Kitroeff or a general number for the Times bureau covering Mexico, Central America, and the Carribbean, of which Kitroeff is the chief.
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The New York Times published a story by Kitroeff and Alan Feuer on Thursday afternoon, insinuating in a statement on X that López Obrador’s stunt was meant to have a chilling effect on their reporting.
“This is a troubling and unacceptable tactic from a world leader at a time when threats against journalists are on the rise,” a spokesperson for the newspaper wrote.
According to Kitroeff and Feuer’s story, the U.S. government discovered some of the Mexican president’s close allies and advisors had received millions in payouts from drug cartels while he was in office. One source claimed that two of the president’s allies had received $4 million from a founder of the Zetas drug cartel, part of a payout he hoped would lead to his release from prison.
Another source told investigators that members of the cartels possessed footage of the president’s sons picking up drug money. Finding no direct links between the cartels and the president, a formal investigation into López Obrador was never opened, and the inquiry was set aside, three sources told the Times.
On Thursday, López Obrador called the allegations “completely false,” and said that the news of the investigation did not “in any way” affect Mexico’s relationship with the U.S.
Last month, López Obrador denounced a series of stories about a U.S. investigation which uncovered that millions of dollars had been funneled into his first presidential campaign in 2006 by drug traffickers. It was not concluded, however, whether López Obrador knew where this money was coming from.
“How are we going to be sitting at the table talking about the fight against drugs if they, or one of their institutions, is leaking information and harming me,” he asked during a news conference.
