Trump Pardons Orlando Hernandez

Trump Pardons Orlando Hernandez as the US President grants pardon to former US ally

Amid being touted as the messiah the world had been wanting for, Trump looks to make more friends than enemies after granting full Presidential pardon to former Honduran President Juan Orlando.

The United States President Donald Trump has formally pardoned ex-Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, saying to the press at the White House on Tuesday that: “I feel pretty good about,” after being asked.

Attorney Rubato Stabile, advocate to Hernandez, and a White House staff while in a programme on CNN on Tuesday, revealed that President Trump had pardoned that former Honduran president.

Last week, during a conference, Mr. Trump announced his intention of granting a “full and complete pardon” to Hernandez in a bid which cleans a major US drug-trafficking sentencing for a one-time US ally.

Trump Pardons Orlando Hernandez

Being the president of Honduras between 2014 and 2022, Juan Orlando Hernandez was convicted and sentenced in 2024 to forty-five years in prison and handed an $8,000,000 fine by a US judge for drug-related offences.

Members from both Republican and Democratic Congresses opposed President Trump’s move to pardon Orlando Hernandez, with some noting that they could not comprehend the president’s plan to pardon the former president given the Trump administration’s move to thwart drug trafficking.

Hernández has now been released from prison, according to his attorney.

A US Bureau of Prisons database also shows that the former Honduran president was released from a prison in West Virginia.

“On behalf of President Hernandez and his family I would like to thank President Trump for correcting this injustice. President Hernandez is glad this ordeal is over and is looking forward to regaining his life after almost 4 years in prison,” Stabile added in a statement.

Ana Garcia de Hernandez, wife to Hernandez, stated in her social media post, reacting to the release of her husband, she called her husband a “free man”, and thanking President Donald Trump for his pardon.

White House Supports Plan

Reacting to the backlash faced by President Donald Trump after the release of the former Honduras president Juan Orlando Hernandez, the White House, on Tuesday, defended Trump’s move to pardon Hernandez after facing criticisms that pardoning a convicted drug peddler opposes his effort against drug cartels in the Caribbean.

Trump Pardons Orlando Hernandez

“Well, he was the president, and they had some drugs being sold in their country, and because he was the president, they went after him — that was a Biden horrible witch hunt,” the president told reporters. “A lot of people in Honduras asked me to do that, and I did it.”

According to White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, who criticised Hernandez’s prosecution under the immediate-past administration of Joe Biden, said: “He was the president of this country. He was in the opposition party,” she said Monday.

“He was opposed to the values of the previous administration, and they charged him because he was president of Honduras.”

But according to the CNN report, prosecutors accused Orlando Hernandez of meddling with drug cartels during his time in office as they moved over 400 tons of cocaine through Honduras approaching the United States.

In exchange, Prosecutors read that Hernandez received millions of dollars in kickbacks that he utilised in fuelling his rise in Honduran politics.

Though the administration of President Donald Trump is blaming the immediate-past administration of President Joe Biden, Hernández’s brother was prosecuted by Emil Bove during Trump’s first term in office.

Bove then served as Trump’s personal attorney before becoming a federal judge nominated by Trump.

Any people in Trump’s orbit had been lobbying for Hernandez’s release, including his longtime ally Roger Stone, who revealed that he made a rally call on the president in June for pardon him and stated that that made him a target by the Biden Administration.

Trump Pardons Orlando Hernandez

Legislators Slam Hernandez’s Pardon

Since President Donald Trump declared his move to pardon Hernandez, legislators on both Republican and Democrat have slammed the decision, with some of them proposing it goes against the United States’ proliferating fight and effort in the region against alleged drug cartels.

Senator Rand Paul from the Republican, Trump’s party, told reporters on Tuesday that the pardon means the “craziness of this policy” of striking alleged drug boats in the Caribbean.

Paul stated that the inconsistency in how the government handled his convicted drug peddler, as contrary to alleged traffickers in international waters who have been killed in the strikes.

“We don’t know who’s in these boats. There could be people being trafficked, basically trying to go into another country illegally, could be in these boats. It could be a host of things,” he said.

GOP Rep. Maria Salazar told CNN’s Dana Bash on Monday that she felt Trump’s announcement sent a mixed message as the administration advances its campaign against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

“I would have never done that,” the Florida Republican said. Similarly, GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy posted on X Sunday,

“Why would we pardon this guy and then go after Maduro for running drugs into the United States?

“Lock up every drug runner! Don’t understand why he is being pardoned.”

A democratic Rep. Norma Torres, representing California, meanwhile, sent a letter to President Donald Trump on Saturday, imploring him not to pardon Juan Orlando Hernandez.

Trump Pardons Orlando Hernandez

“Releasing Mr. Hernández flies in the face of your stated aim to fight narco-trafficking and to label narcotics gangs as terrorists,” Torres’ letter reads.

“If drug cartels are terrorist organizations, Juan Orlando Hernández is a convicted terrorist and must not go free.”