A 60 Minutes segment on CECOT prison, the infamous El Salvadoran facility where the Trump administration sent deportees last year, aired on Sunday, four weeks after it was pulled by CBS News editor in chief Bari Weiss for not being ready.
The segment itself appeared identical to a version that leaked on social media shortly after it was pulled, after a Canadian broadcaster mistakenly posted it to their app.
Correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi recorded a new intro and an extensive new postscript, the latter containing new information as well as portions of written statements from the White House and responses from the Department of Homeland Security.
What was still missing was an on camera interview with a Trump administration official, something cited by Weiss as a reason to hold it. In the intro, Alfonsi noted that since November, 60 Minutes had “made several attempts to interview Trump administration officials on camera about our story. They declined our requests.”
The segment had been initially edited and promoted for a Dec. 21 broadcast. But earlier that afternoon, the network announced that it was being pulled and would be broadcast at a later date.
Hours later, Alfonsi sent an email to staffers objecting to the decision to pull it, saying that it was not an editorial move but a “political” one and amounted to corporate interference.
Alfonsi wrote that the piece had been screened five times and cleared by standards and practices and network attorneys. “It is factually correct. In my view, pulling it now, after every rigorous internal check has been met, is not an editorial decision, it is a political one,” Alfonsi said.
In the note, Alfonsi suggested that the reason for pulling the segment was that the administration had refused to participate. “We requested responses to questions and/or interviews with DHS, the White House and the State Department. Government silence is a statement, not a VETO. Their refusal to be interviewed is a tactical maneuver destined to kill the story.” In the segment itself, Alfonsi had noted that the Department of Homeland Security “declined our request for an interview” and referred questions about the prison to the government of El Salvador, which did not respond.
Weiss defended the decision to pull the piece, telling staffers the next day that she held the story because it was “not ready.”
“We need to be able to get the principals on the record and on camera,” she said, apparently referring to a Trump administration official who could address the deportations.
“Our viewers come first. Not the listing schedule or anything else. That’s my north star and I hope it’s yours, too,” Weiss said.
A CBS News spokesperson said earlier on Sunday, “CBS News leadership has always been committed to airing the 60 Minutes CECOT piece as soon as it was ready. Tonight, viewers get to see it, along with other important stories, all of which speak to CBS News’ independence and the power of our storytelling.”
The segment featured interviews with Venezuelan deportees who were sent to the harsh CECOT prison.
Among those featured in the segment that surfaced online was Luis Munoz Pinto, who described being beaten and sexually assaulted. He said that he was detained by customs officers as he was awaiting asylum proceedings, but had no criminal record.
The deportees were eventually sent to Venezuela as part of a prisoner swap with the regime of Nicolas Maduro last summer.
The unaired segment appeared online on Dec. 22, a day after its original airdate. Global TV — the outlet that airs 60 Minutes in Canada — had featured the segment on its app before it was taken down, apparently appearing by mistake because of the late CBS News decision to pull it.
That leaked piece did not feature a postscript, but Sunday’s version did feature an extensive one.
Alfonsi noted that 60 Minutes had repeatedly asked the Department of Homeland Security for the complete records and criminal backgrounds of the 252 Venezuelan men who were sent to CECOT.
‘It would not provide them,” Alfonsi said, adding that DHS “told us we are confident in our law enforcement intelligence and we aren’t going to share intelligence reports and undermine national security every time a gang member denies he is one. That would be insane.”
She said that 60 Minutes then relied on the ICE data that is available, showing that 33 men had been convicted of a crime in the U.S., eight of them for violent or potentially violent crimes. Another 70 had pending charges, she said, adding that DHS had declined to share the information about the nature of those charges.
Alfonsi said that Pinto and another detainee featured in the story, William Lozada Sanchez, had not been convicted of any crime.
DHS, she noted, sent a photo of Sanchez’s arm with a swastika tattoo. Sanchez, she said, “told us he got the offensive tattoo at 15 and didn’t know what it meant. He claims he regretted it and had it changed just before the U.S. sent him to CECOT.” Alfonsi noted that “five gang experts told us that swastikas and 666, another tattoo on Lozada’s arm, have no connection to the violent Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.
Alfonsi then read a statement from the White House, and noted that a federal judge recently ordered the Trump administration “to give those men the due process they were denied.” She said that DHS “deflected all questions about abuse allegations” at the prisom, saying they were not under U.S. jurisdiction. She also read part of Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s declaration to the court, that “bringing the deported Venezuelans to the U.S. for hearings or holding remote ones at this time would risk ‘material damage to U.S. foreign policy interests in Venezuela.”
Spokespersons for the White House and the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately return a request for comment.