GOP campaign arm: Dem lawmaker should return Sean Penn donations

House Republicans’ campaign operation is calling on one of their top Democratic targets this election cycle to return donations from Sean Penn following the actor’s controversial interview with Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.

Federal Election Commission records show that Penn gave $17,600 worth of donations toward Rep. Raul Ruiz’s (D-Calif.) campaigns in the 2014 and 2012 election cycles. 

{mosads}The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) is eyeing Ruiz’s Palm Springs-area district, which the nonpartisan Cook Political Report rates as “likely” staying in Democratic control. In a Monday statement, the NRCC suggested Ruiz put the campaign funds toward treating drug abuse perpetuated by the Sinaloa cartel that Guzman leads in Mexico.

“Raul Ruiz should immediately condemn Sean Penn’s sympathies for notorious drug king Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman by donating the $17,600 in campaign contributions he has received from Penn to heroin treatment clinics in the 36th District,” NRCC spokesman Zach Hunter said in a statement.

Ruiz, who is Mexican American, is dismissing the suggestion of returning the past donations.

“We don’t respond to political stunts, and that’s all this is,” Ruiz campaign consultant Roy Behr said.

White House chief of staff Denis McDonough said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday that he was “appalled” by Guzman’s comments in the Rolling Stone article published Saturday night. Penn met and conducted the interview with Guzman last fall while the drug lord was on the run following his elaborate prison escape in July.

McDonough said the United States would cede to Mexico on possibly investigating whether Penn should have alerted authorities of Guzman’s whereabouts. 

“We’ll let somebody else sort out what Sean Penn did and didn’t do,” he said. “El Chapo’s where he should be.” 

In the interview, Guzman openly acknowledged running an extensive criminal drug network. 

“I supply more heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana than anybody else in the world. I have a fleet of submarines, airplanes, trucks and boats,” the drug kingpin said.

Rolling Stone and Penn have come under criticism for the blockbuster interview, both for meeting secretly with a highly wanted criminal as well as allowing Guzman to approve the article before its publication. Guzman did not request any changes, according to Rolling Stone.

Penn has donated to a handful of other Democratic politicians in the past. The Oscar-winning actor most recently gave more than $5,000 to California Attorney General Kamala Harris’s 2016 Senate campaign. He has also contributed to presidential campaigns for President Obama, former Sen. John Edwards (N.C.) and ex-Rep. Dennis Kucinich (Ohio), as well as Sen. Barbara Boxer’s (D-Calif.) reelection bids.

This story was updated at 4:42 p.m.