Former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández thanked U.S. President Donald Trump for pardoning a U.S. drug-trafficking conviction amid criticism from lawmakers that the pardon would undermine White House efforts to stop drug trafficking.
“I express my deep gratitude to the President (Trump) for having the courage to defend justice when a weaponized system refuses to acknowledge the truth,” Hernandez wrote on Wednesday.
Hernández, who served as Honduras’ president from 2014 to 2022, was convicted by a U.S. judge last year of drug trafficking charges and sentenced to 45 years in prison and an $8 million fine. Hernandez maintained his innocence, saying his trial was “rigged” and based on the accusations of criminals seeking revenge against him.
Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers have criticized President Trump’s decision to pardon drug-trafficking convictions, even as his administration focuses on curbing drug trafficking in Latin America, ramping up military operations and launching controversial attacks on drug-smuggling ships in the Caribbean.
Several lawmakers have pointed to the contradictions in pardoning Mr. Hernández while pursuing Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who is wanted in the United States on similar charges.
“Why pardon this man and then go after Mr. Maduro for smuggling drugs into the United States? Lock up all the drug traffickers! I don’t understand why he’s being pardoned,” Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy wrote on X.
Republican Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar told CNN that she felt President Trump’s announcement sent mixed messages and “never did that.”
But President Trump defended his decision to pardon Hernández to reporters on Tuesday, saying it “feels very good.”
“Well, he was president, and they were selling some drugs in their own country, and they went after him because he was president, and it was a horrible witch hunt of Biden,” Trump said. “A lot of people in Honduras asked me to do it, so I did it.”
Prosecutors had accused Hernández of conspiring with a drug cartel to transport more than 400 tons of cocaine through Honduras to the United States while he was in office. In return, prosecutors said, Mr. Hernández accepted millions of dollars in bribes, which he used to fuel his rise in Honduran politics.
Several people in Mr. Trump’s orbit lobbied for Mr. Hernández’s pardon, including Mr. Trump’s longtime ally Roger Stone. Stone claimed that the former Honduran leader had been targeted by the Biden administration and said he asked President Trump to pardon him in June.
The White House has accused Biden of targeting Hernandez, whose brother was prosecuted during Trump’s first term by Emile Bove, who later became Trump’s personal lawyer.
Hernandez has now been released from prison, according to his lawyer. The U.S. Bureau of Prisons database also shows the former Honduran president has been released from a prison in West Virginia.
In a social media post Wednesday, Hernández assured Hondurans that he would “continue to protect what we built together” but did not say whether he had any plans to return to Honduras.
He added that he plans to share more “soon.”
