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A deal with the Devil is better than no deal at all. 

That’s a time-tested maxim at the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, where agents routinely cultivate unsavory characters—criminal informants and sketchy local and foreign law enforcement partners—and use them to penetrate organized crime rings and reel in bigger fish. 

The problem comes when you let the Devil run the table. 

Which, according to DEA insiders, has happened since Attorney General Bill Barr set free Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda, a former Mexican defense minister and retired Mexican army general arrested on October 15 while on vacation in Los Angeles. The retired general had been secretly indicted on August 14, 2019. The charges: conspiring to protect a Mexican drug cartel, smuggle narcotics into the U.S. and launder dirty cartel cash. 

Later last October agents in L.A. put him on a plane to New York, where he was awaiting trial.

The Mexicans howled mightily, as expected. But then unexpectedly, Barr sent him back.

Barr’s de…