The impeachment process against Donald Trump might have prompted the capture of Genaro García Luna. The arrest, signed by U.S. Attorney Richard Donoghue, points out that the former secretary, who commanded the Mexican federal forces against drug cartels during the administration of Felipe Calderón, was under DEA investigation since January 2001, during the first term of George W. Bush and when Vicente Fox was president of Mexico.

The 9/11 terrorist attacks had not yet taken place and Bush had a close relationship with the first Mexican president not from the PRI party. Back then, García Luna headed the Mexican Federal Investigation Agency, strongly supported by the FBI.

A file made up of almost 20 years shows that the DEA watched over García Luna's business operations in Miami and Dallas - he provided security consulting for both individuals and corporations - and at the same time the U.S. anti drug agency had the audacity of, in 2012, decorating García Luna for his contribution to the fight against drug trafficking.

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The coup de grace against the now detained was when, in mid-2018, he tried to nationalize himself as a U.S. citizen. This process demands a sworn statement that assures that one has not committed certain crimes. García Luna made that statement and thus sealed his fate.

The timing of his capture motivates speculation. According to Mexican diplomats in Washington, the arrest is actually a consequence of the imminent impeachment that Donald Trump is facing.

The government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador was not informed beforehand of the political bomb that was about to go off. All the efforts of the administration were placed on the approval of the USMCA. Trump moved forward with a detention that he will capitalize on using his favorite labels: organized crime, cartels, and Mexico.

In this sense, García Luna's arrest is the consolation prize of the failed capture of Chapo Guzmán's son.

Felipe Calderón Hinojosa and George W. Bush at the UN General Assembly 

This is a serious hit on the Mexican power system: García Luna is a man with strong connections in the political and business establishment. For these hours, some of the country's most powerful men are looking for every trace of their ties with the former "supersecretary", the same man who is now being held in a prison in the United States. Perhaps the same one Joaquín Guzmán Loera ended up in.

Of the arrest, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador was extremely careful regarding former President Felipe Calderón and stated from his morning press conference on Wednesday that this capture will not be used to attack him.

"I don't want people to think that we are taking advantage of this circumstance to attack Calderón, the former president. Even with all the damage he did, not only to me, to the country, because all this began, we must not forget it, with the electoral fraud [of 2006]," López Obrador said from the National Palace.

Calderón defeated López Obrador in the 2006 election, following strong accusations of electoral fraud against the current president.

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For his part, former President Calderon, who launched the so-called "war against drug trafficking" at the beginning of his term in 2007, said that he was "deeply surprised" by the arrest of his former Security Secretary. He added that if the accusations against him were corroborated by the Justice Department, it would be a "very serious" betrayal of his trust.

Calderon has emerged as a sort of "moral leader" of the opposition to the current government. The former president is trying to build a new center-right political party: México Libre. His leadership is in part based on his fight against organized crime. That his drug czar is charged with drug trafficking and for protecting the world's most powerful cartel is a major setback to his credibility.

" Regarding the arrest of Engineer Genaro García Luna, I would like to point out that I was completely unaware of the charges against him, since I never had any information or evidence about them. For the same reason, I am profoundly surprised by what is happening," Calderón said in a letter published in his Twitter account.