In Colombia there is a popular saying that says that you can find a Colombian anywhere and in any position in the world. And the protagonists of this story honor that saying.
These are three characters of Colombian origin who today make the headlines of American newspapers and that they play a key role in the current political and judicial agenda of that country.
We talk about Adriana Kugler, Colombian-American nominated by President Joe Biden to be Governor of the Federal Reserve (Fed) –US central bank–, and Juan Merchan and Aileen Canon, both fundamental Colombian judges in the judicial cases that the former president of the United States Donald Trump is facing today.
Kluger, for example, is news today in the economic world because, if confirmed, would become the first Latina director of the Federal Reserve in the 109-year history of that institution.
This 53-year-old economist -qualified by Biden as a highly qualified and highly experienced professional- was born in the United States, although she returned to Colombia when she was only two years old and remained in our country until she was 15 years old and traveled back to US territory.
(Also read: Trump attacks Colombian judge and his family, could he force his resignation?)
His career is wide. He was chief economist at the US Department of Labor during the Obama administration. She was part of the technical advisory committee of the Bureau of Labor Statistics and executive director of the United States at the World Bank Group. This added an important trajectory in educational institutions of great prestige in the United States, such as Georgetown University.
This week, Kugler appeared before the US Senate Committee for a confirmation hearing for the job he hopes to fill at the Fed. From there, highlighted the importance of migration and the American dream of his parents that has allowed him to occupy the most important economic positions in that nation.
“As a first-generation American and the daughter of Colombian immigrants, I am lucky to have lived the American dream. after having known poverty and adversity. I have had educational and economic opportunities that my parents and grandparents would never have had, and I have benefited from the social mobility that is only possible in our dynamic American economy,” the economist told the Senate, while pledging to share her experience personally and professionally to reduce inflation in the United States and make appropriate decisions on monetary policy.
(It may interest you: Illegal migration of Colombians to the United States breaks a record: 131,000 arrests in 2023)
The judges of the cases against Donald Trump
On the legal side, the Colombians who mark the stop are Juan Manuel Merchán and Aileen Cannon, both related – although in different ways – to the court cases against Republican Donald Trump.
Merchán was born in Bogotá and immigrated to the United States when he was six years old.. He started in that country carrying food, helping in hotels as a night manager and even being a meat delivery man. This Bogotá native graduated in law in 1994 and, since then, began his judicial career in the United States.
in 2022Merchán presided over the trial against the Trump organization, accused of tax fraud. According to the evidence collected, the company received benefits for its directors without paying the respective taxes and without reporting them to the tax authorities.
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During the criminal tax fraud trial of Donald Trump’s family real estate business, one participant was unusually equipped to digest the rows of spreadsheets and tax documents: the presiding judge, who worked for several years as an internal auditor. https://t.co/plKrdZz2os
—The New York Times (@nytimes) December 6, 2022
And this year the Colombian took on an even fatter process and that many media outlets in that country have described as the most outstanding case of his career. It is about the process against Trump for the payment to the exactriz porno Stormy Daniels in the midst of the 2020 presidential campaign. Today, that case costs the Republican a 34-count indictment of falsifying business records.
The former president and his sons have already placed their troops against Merchán and even against his family. They accuse him of being a pocket judge for the Democrats and of belonging to the conspiracy that wants to remove Trump from the White House.
A little over a month ago, in fact, the Republican’s lawyers challenged the Colombian, asking for an “impartial judge and due process against the former president.” Several of his colleagues, on the contrary, define him as “a serious, intelligent and even-tempered jurist”.
The last Colombian to star in the articles in American newspapers is Aileen Cannon, born in Cali and appointed in 2020 by Trump as a judge in the federal courts for the Southern District of Florida.
Today, this woman from Cali is in charge of the case of the classified documents that Trump took from the White House when he left the presidency and for which he has been accused of endangering national security in the United States.
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Cannon will decide how quickly the case will go to trial, oversee the selection of jurors, and determine what evidence can be presented to the jury.
Born in Cali in 1981, Cannon grew up in Miami and attended Duke University (North Carolina) and the University of Michigan Law School.
In 2013, he focused his work in Florida as a United States Attorney in the Southern District of Florida in the felony and appellate divisions.
But Cannon came into the spotlight last September when she oversaw court proceedings that the FBI found at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida.
In the middle of that process, Cannon denied the US Department of Justice a motion to continue reviewing and investigating material seized at Mar-a-Lagowhile also appointing Judge Raymond Dearie, a former Brooklyn-based district court chief magistrate, as an independent expert witness.
Now, according to the US press, some legal experts think that Trump could have an ally in Judge Cannon and that she is particularly pleased with the former president.
(Read on: Adriana Kugler One Step Closer to Federal Reserve Governor)
“I certainly don’t think she has the capacity, based on what happened before and the way she was disapproved by the circuit court for trying to interfere with the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago,” said the former secretary of Justice, Eric Holder, to Telemundo.
Others, like Alfonso Aguilar, political director of Americano Media, say that Cannon does have the capacity to see the case. She “she is a judge with impressive credentials, she is very intelligent, she is very capable and in no way would I question her objectivity.”
In any case, amid criticism or praise, there are three Colombians who today set the United States’ agenda.
INTERNATIONAL WRITING AND TRADE (GDA)
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