Trump Pardons Ex-Honduran Pres. Convicted For Drug Trafficking
2022. Hernández arrest.
Former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández was released from a U.S. prison Monday after President Trump granted him a pardon for drug-trafficking and firearms charges.
The case: Hernández was sentenced in 2024 to 45 years in prison for taking millions of dollars in bribes from drug traffickers to allow about 400 tons of cocaine to move safely through Honduras on its way to the U.S.
Prosecutors said he used drug money to fuel his rise in Honduran politics, even boasting that he would “stuff the drugs up the gringos’ noses.”
Hernández served as president of Honduras from 2014 to 2022, and was arrested shortly after leaving office.
Critics: Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) wrote Sunday on X: “Why would we pardon this guy and then go after Maduro for running drugs into the United States? Lock up every drug runner!” Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) called the move “disgraceful hypocrisy.”
The White House defended Trump’s decision, despite criticism that pardoning a convicted drug trafficker undermines the administration’s ongoing pressure campaign against cartels in the Caribbean. But on Monday, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the case against Hernández was a “clear Biden over-prosecution.”
Over the past few months, the Trump administration has been going after Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro over alleged ties to drug-trafficking networks — the same type of allegations Hernández was convicted on.
Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Tuesday during a White House cabinet meeting that, “We’ve only just begun striking narco-boats and putting narco-terrorists at the bottom of the ocean."
PUSH TO PARDON
In an Oct. 28 letter to Trump, Hernández claimed he was “targeted by the Biden-Harris administration not for any wrongdoing, but for political reasons” — a claim Trump has echoed.
“Like you, I was recklessly attacked by radical leftist forces who could not tolerate change, who conspired with drug traffickers and resorted to false accusations, lawfare, and selective justice to destroy what we had achieved and clear the path for the Honduran radical left’s return to power,” he wrote.
Trump’s announcement of the pardon late last week came just days before Honduras’ presidential election, which he voiced support for Nasry Asfura of Hernández’s National Party. On Tuesday, the vote count shows it is virtually tied with Salvador Nasralla of the Liberal Party.
A system failure has left about 20% of votes uncounted for, with Trump threatening there will be “hell to pay” if there is election fraud.