Ever since the CICIG had been forced out of the country, in 2018, the attorney general, an arch conservative named María Consuelo Porras, had been charging and arresting lawyers who’d been involved in the fight against corruption. Twenty-two judges and anti-corruption prosecutors had been forced into exile. The claims against them were baseless; in many cases, private lawyers with ties to vested interests brought highly dubious charges that the ministry used as pretexts to launch formal investigations. The State Department issued sanctions against Consuelo Porras, but she wasn’t deterred.
