An attorney for Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman has a message for Texas Sen. Ted Cruz: The recently convicted drug kingpin is not paying for the wall.
The leader of the violent Sinaloa drug cartel faces a mandatory life sentence. Federal prosecutors also plan to seek a forfeiture judgment for the property Guzman gained from drug trafficking. The value of that property is believed to be as high as $14 billion.
After Guzman's conviction Tuesday, Cruz renewed calls to use the money for border security.
"By leveraging any criminally forfeited assets of El Chapo and other murderous drug lords, we can offset the cost of securing our border and make meaningful progress toward delivering on the promises made to the American people," Cruz said in a statement at the time.
Guzman was found guilty Tuesday of 10 counts, including engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise. Cruz has proposed several times that El Chapo pay for a border wall, including in an Opinion piece in The Washington Post last week.
In a response to the piece, El Chapo's attorney, Jeffrey Lichtman, said that is unlikely to happen.
"Sen. Cruz surely knows that the government has seized none -- not a penny -- of Mr Guzman's assets so getting him to pay for the wall is ludicrous," Lichtman said Sunday. "There's a better chance of Mr Cruz paying for the wall."
He declined to comment on Guzman's assets.
