WASHINGTON, Dec 2 (Reuters) – President Donald Trump, who has cast himself as a relentless foe of illegal drugs, pardoned former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, freeing him from a 45-year sentence for conspiring to import tons of cocaine into the United States.
Trump’s extraordinary move undermines decades of U.S. efforts to combat transnational drug networks, potentially damages Washington’s credibility in Latin America, and signals to corrupt actors that political connections can outweigh criminal accountability.
Trump signed the pardon for Hernandez on Monday night, a White House official said. The Federal Bureau of Prisons released him from prison in Hazelton, West Virginia, on Monday. While some conservatives in the U.S., including Trump ally Roger Stone, had pushed for Hernandez’s release, it was not clear what, or who, prompted Trump to issue the surprise pardon.
The U.S. president has cited the dangers of illicit drug flows from Latin America as justification for a series of deadly U.S. attacks on boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, and a military buildup near Venezuela. Democrats and legal scholars have criticized the attacks and questioned their legal justification, noting that they have killed at least 80 people.
During the Biden administration, the U.S. Justice Department asserted that Hernandez, who was president from 2014 to 2022, had abused his power by accepting millions of dollars in bribes from traffickers to protect their U.S.-bound cocaine shipments and to fuel his rise in Honduran politics. A Manhattan jury found Hernandez guilty in March 2024.
HERNANDEZ CLAIMS PERSECUTION
At his sentencing, Hernandez argued the traffickers testified against him because he helped extradite them from Honduras to the United States. “This was a political persecution by drug traffickers and politicians,” Hernandez said then, according to the court transcript.
In prison, Hernandez wrote a long letter to Trump in which he called himself a political target of the Biden administration, comparing himself to the U.S. president, who faced multiple prosecutions during Biden’s presidency and claimed the charges were politically motivated.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Monday that Hernandez had been the victim of a “setup,” and that Trump was acting on the “concerns of many people.”
Hernandez’s attorney, Renato Stabile, told Reuters the former president was still in the country and that it was not safe for him to return to Honduras, citing the risk of possible assassination by “narco-terrorists.”
Asked whether Hernandez would remain in the United States or go to a third country, Stabile said that remained unclear and that Hernandez was not yet in possession of his passport.
“He is very grateful to President Trump and relieved that this nightmare is over,” Stabile said.
STONE INTERVENES
Stone, a South Florida-based conservative commentator and longtime Trump adviser, had for months advocated for Hernandez’s release. He said on his radio show on Sunday that he had given Trump Hernandez’s letter.
On the show, Hernandez’s wife, Ana García de Hernández, said Stone’s advocacy for her husband had made a “huge difference” in the president’s decision.
The White House official said Trump had not seen the letter before announcing his intent to pardon Hernandez on Friday.
Stone did not respond to requests for comment.
The letter from Hernandez appeared designed to appeal to Trump’s sense of injustice and was infused with flattery, calling the president “Your Excellency” and referring to their shared “conservative values.”
U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer, the Senate’s top Democrat, blasted Trump’s decision in remarks on the chamber’s floor on Tuesday.
“It would be bad enough on its own for Donald Trump to pardon this horrible drug trafficker, but for him to pardon this drug lord while putting a quarter of our military in the Caribbean, right nearby Honduras, to fight drug trafficking, makes an utter mockery of Donald Trump’s supposed desire to root out all drug trafficking,” Schumer said.
HONDURAN ELECTIONS
Hernandez’s release came a day after a presidential election in Honduras, in which Trump has backed presidential candidate Nasry Asfura of the conservative National Party, who is facing off with liberal Salvador Nasralla. The latest vote count showed both candidates practically tied, with each holding just under 40% of the vote.
Asfura’s party forged a close partnership with Washington under Hernandez, who governed from 2014 to 2022 and was arrested shortly after leaving office.
Enrique Reina, the vice presidential running mate for Rixi Moncada of the ruling LIBRE party, criticized Hernandez’s release in a post on X.
“The planet is succumbing to the breakdown of all norms, based on threats and violations of every rule and principle. Those who remain silent — or worse, those who are complicit — are part of the rise of something that threatens more than just Honduras,” Reina said.
(Reporting by Jeff Mason, Diego Ore and Andrew Hay; additional reporting by Aida Pelaez-Fernandez, Nathan Layne, Katharine Jackson, Patricia Zengerle; Writing by James Oliphant; Editing by Daina Beth Solomon, Ross Colvin and Nick Zieminski)
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