Bukele Lobbyist Received $325,000 in Three Months to Court MAGA Politicians

Wednesday, July 10, 2024
Jimmy Alvarado

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One of the authors of Nayib Bukele’s strategy to draw close to the Make America Great Again movement in the United States is Argentinian advisor Damian Mathías Merlo Denebardi. Merlo is registered with the U.S. Justice Department since January 2022 as a lobbyist on behalf of the Office of the President of El Salvador via Latin America Advisory Group LLC, where he is a managing partner.

U.S. public records show the payments he received for a slice of this work. Between April and June 2023, Merlo’s firm took in five transfers of $65,000 USD each, totaling $325,000, for at least nine months of labors by that point on behalf of the Bukele administration. At the time of filing he was set to receive a sixth outstanding payment, thereby reaching $390,000, but the records available online do not state whether this latter check was issued. On February 13, Merlo submitted documents to the Justice Department stating that his contract with the Salvadoran Presidency was set to end in under four months, on May 31, 2024.

While the Salvadoran government’s own public-information portal does not provide information on his contractual duties, the U.S. documents record his lobbying to strengthen relations between El Salvador and the United States, chiefly by reaching out to Republicans in Congress and right-wing influencers supportive of Donald Trump. These documents also reveal a photocopy of the contract he signed in January 2022 with Claudia Juana Rodríguez de Guevara, at the time Bukele’s private secretary.


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In February 2024, Bukele lobbyist Damian Merlo met at CPAC with Matt and Mercedes Schlapp, respectively the director of CPAC and former director of strategic communications for the Trump administration.

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Donald Trump Jr (bottom-right), Damian Merlo (with glasses), Matt Schlapp (standing), and Kimberly Guilfoyle (center-left) in Casa Presidencial in San Salvador for a reception following the June 1 inauguration.


Documents filed under the Foreign Agents Registry Act (FARA) record at least 15 meetings with conservative U.S. politicians, some of whom traveled to San Salvador for the inauguration of Bukele’s unconstitutional second term. Among them is Florida Congresswoman María Elvira Salazar, the chair of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere. One report filed by Merlo listed one text message, four emails, and an in-person meeting with Salazar —a former journalist who is close to right-wing movements in the hemisphere and has endorsed Donald Trump for president this year— in May and June 2023.

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https://elfaro.net/en/202407/el_salvador/27489/bukele-lobbyist-received-325-000-in-three-months-to-court-maga-politicians