President Trump said on November 28 that he planned to pardon the former Honduran leader, and White House officials confirmed on December 2 that the pardon had been decided.
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President Donald Trump has pardoned a former Honduran leader who was sentenced to prison for distributing cocaine, but the White House insists the move does not undermine his anti-drug campaign, which includes military strikes against suspected drug ships near Venezuela.
President Trump said on November 28 that he plans to pardon former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez. White House officials and Hernandez’s lawyer, Renato Stabile, confirmed on December 2 that the pardon had been decided. Stabile said Hernandez was released early Dec. 2 from federal prison, where he was serving a 45-year sentence for “cocaine importation and related weapons offenses,” according to the Department of Justice.
Hernandez was “the central figure in the world’s largest and most violent drug trafficking conspiracy” and helped bring more than 400 tons of cocaine into the United States, the Justice Department said in a press release after his conviction last year.
President Trump said in a social media post that he granted the pardon because “people I highly respect” told him that Hernandez had been “treated very harshly and unjustly.” Axios reported that Roger Stone, a longtime adviser to President Trump, lobbied for the pardon.
White House press secretary Caroline Levitt said in a Dec. 1 press conference that Hernandez’s case was “a clear…overprosecution” by former President Joe Biden’s administration. Asked whether the amnesty package would undermine President Trump’s stance on Venezuela, which has included boat attacks and a major military buildup, Levitt said, “I don’t think so.”
“I think President Trump has been very clear in defending the American homeland to stop these illegal drugs from entering our borders, whether by land or by sea,” Levitt said. “And he has also made it clear that he wants to right the wrongs of the Justice Department that were weaponized under the previous administration.”
President Trump has made cracking down on illegal drug trafficking a centerpiece of his second term, imposing tariffs on countries he accuses of not doing enough to stop the flow of fentanyl. The administration has also launched an aggressive campaign targeting alleged Venezuelan drug traffickers, drawing criticism from legal experts and members of Congress.
President Trump told military officials during a Thanksgiving conference call that he would soon expand military operations around Venezuela to include ground strikes.
This story has been updated to add new information.
