Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador addressed the controversy raised by the statements of former U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Roberta Jacobson, who said that officials of the Calderón administration (2006-2012) were aware of the alleged links between Genaro García Luna -then Secretary of Public Security- and the Sinaloa cartel.

On Tuesday, during his morning press conference, the president said that "so far there are no elements" to implicate Calderón in the investigation of García Luna, and that if they were to appear, "it would be something else," and again suggested, as he did in the case of former President Enrique Peña Nieto, the possibility that his administration could promote a trial against the former PAN president "only if the citizens approve it in a referendum".

Sarkozy: "The arrest of Garcia Luna didn't surprise me at all, I knew long ago that it was going to happen"

Jacobson, who was ambassador in Mexico during the administration of Barack Obama, offered an interview with Proceso magazine. In it, the diplomat assured that former President Felipe Calderón knew at the time that his Secretary of Public Security was linked with drug trafficking organizations. The former secretary is currently in New York awaiting trial.

"Blaming the United States for information it had and suggesting that the government of Mexico did not have the same information about the corruption or problems of an official is probably as naive and worse, frankly, than duplicity," Jacobson said, referring to the former President's attitude as "double-sided".

"The information we were getting - at the State Department - was through U.S. officials, but it was coming from Mexicans [officials]," the former ambassador said. "They were the ones who received the most information and had the most information about García Luna's corruption".

Former Mexican President Felipe Calderón and Genaro García Luna.

AMLO added that, if the U.S. Attorney's Office asked him for information on Calderón, his government would hand it over, since there are "collaboration and cooperation agreements" with that country, which is prosecuting the former secretary of security for his links with drug trafficking groups.

"But let's not get ahead of ourselves, let's wait until the trial is over and we will always act with rectitude," the president added, although he immediately declared his predecessor to be an "adversary who stole the presidency from us," in relation to the disputed 2006 elections.

Lopez Obrador said that although Calderón has the right to participate in politics, "this generates a reaction and that is what makes the atmosphere so bad".

Still, he affirmed that one must act responsibly and not make summary judgments about the role of the former president, who in the last hours again denied that he was aware of the alleged criminal links of his former official, who according to the U.S. designed the Mexican "war on drugs" strategy to harm the groups that disputed the Sinaloa Cartel's business. That is why, he said, we had to "wait for the facts and let reality prevail.

Calderón responded to Lopez Obrador from his Twitter account:

"Mr. President, I appreciate your good intention. But Justice is not a matter of consultations, but evidence and laws. If the Attorney General's Office has evidence that I have committed a crime, go ahead, let it proceed. But if not, no consultation counts," wrote the former Mexican president. "Respect my rights".

Calderón ended by making a "respectful suggestion" to AMLO:

"Concentrate on the pandemic, the greatest health threat to humanity in a century, and on the terrible economic recession to come, the worst in modern Mexico. We need you there. Tell your strategists to stop distracting public opinion with me".