President Trump has officially pardoned former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, whom U.S. officials say was at the center of one of the largest and most violent drug‑trafficking conspiracies in the world. A White House official confirmed the pardon and the Federal Bureau of Prisons confirmed his release on Monday.
Hernández, who served two terms as Honduras’s president, had been sentenced to 45 years for conspiring to import cocaine into the United States. The pardon has drawn accusations of deceit and hypocrisy against the Trump administration, coming as the president and his team ramp up a military campaign against drug trafficking out of Venezuela.
Critics say the move undermines the administration’s stated focus on fighting narcotics. Sen. Tim Kaine, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, called the decision “shocking,” saying Hernández led “one of the largest criminal enterprises that has ever been subject to a conviction in U.S. courts,” and noting the pardon came less than a year into his sentence.
Hernández’s time in office briefly overlapped with Trump’s first term. During that period, Hernández secured support from the Trump administration and joined a small group of countries that moved their embassies in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Trump criticized Hernández’s prosecution, saying people he respects told him Hernández was “treated very harshly and unfairly.”
Roger Stone, a longtime Trump adviser, lobbied for Hernández’s release and said he delivered a four‑page letter from Hernández claiming wrongful conviction and “lawfare by the Biden‑Harris administration.” Trump teased the pardon on Truth Social last week: “CONGRATULATIONS TO JUAN ORLANDO HERNANDEZ ON YOUR UPCOMING PARDON … MAKE HONDURAS GREAT AGAIN!”
Court documents say Hernández abused his position to facilitate the importation of tons of cocaine into the United States and received millions of dollars from major and violent trafficking organizations. Judge P. Kevin Castel described Hernández as a “two‑faced politician hungry for power,” and former Attorney General Merrick Garland said Hernández “abused his presidency to operate the country as a narco‑state where violent traffickers operated with near‑total impunity.”
Hernández has maintained his innocence and had been appealing his conviction while serving his sentence at the U.S. Penitentiary Hazelton in West Virginia.
This is not the first of Trump’s pardons to draw scrutiny. Since returning to office he has pardoned political and business allies, prompting accusations of pay‑to‑play. Past recipients have included MAGA loyalists, a cryptocurrency executive with ties to his family’s crypto firm, and dozens of allies who sought to overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss to Joe Biden.