Former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hern\u00e1ndez thanked President Donald Trump for pardoning him, writing on social media that he was ‘wrongfully convicted.’<\/p>\n
‘My profound gratitude goes to President @realDonaldTrump for having the courage to defend justice at a moment when a weaponized system refused to acknowledge the truth. You reviewed the facts, recognized the injustice, and acted with conviction. You changed my life, sir, and I will never forget it,’ Hern\u00e1ndez wrote on X in his first remarks since he was released by the Bureau of Prisons.<\/p>\n
‘I was set up by the Biden Harris administration and the deep state through a rigged trial. There was no real evidence, only the accusations of criminals who sought revenge. Yet the truth of my innocence prevailed,’ he said in part.<\/p>\n
Hern\u00e1ndez was sentenced to 45 years in prison in June 2024 for conspiring to distribute more than 400 tons of cocaine and for related firearms offenses.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Former Attorney General Merrick Garland said the ex-two-term president used his power to support one of the largest and most violent drug trafficking conspiracies in the world.<\/p>\n
‘Hern\u00e1ndez received millions of dollars of drug money from some of the largest and most violent drug-trafficking organizations in Honduras, Mexico, and elsewhere, and used those bribes to fuel his rise in Honduran politics,’ the Department of Justice said.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Hern\u00e1ndez\u2019s brother, Juan Antonio Hern\u00e1ndez Alvarado, was also convicted in October 2019 and sentenced to life in prison.<\/p>\n
Trump said he pardoned the former Honduran leader because ‘a lot of people in Honduras’ asked him to, adding he feels ‘very good about it.’<\/p>\n
‘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 \u2013 that was a Biden horrible witch hunt,’ Trump told reporters Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Several GOP lawmakers criticized the pardon amid the White House\u2019s targeting of alleged drug boats off the coast of Venezuela.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., criticized the decision to pardon Hern\u00e1ndez, saying it made little sense to free him while the U.S. continues to pursue Venezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro on federal narco-terrorism charges.<\/p>\n
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., also criticized the move in an interview on CNN<\/u>, saying he couldn\u2019t understand how the U.S. could ‘threaten a potential land war against a thug and a narco-terrorist who plays like he\u2019s the president of Venezuela, and then go easy on someone whose investigation that led to an indictment started in the Trump administration.’<\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hern\u00e1ndez thanked President Donald Trump for pardoning him, writing on social media that he was ‘wrongfully convicted.’ ‘My profound gratitude goes to President @realDonaldTrump for having the courage to defend justice at a moment when a weaponized system refused to acknowledge the truth. You reviewed the facts, recognized the injustice, <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48401,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-48400","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/principleisapromise.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/principleisapromise.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/principleisapromise.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/principleisapromise.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/principleisapromise.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/principleisapromise.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48400\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/principleisapromise.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/principleisapromise.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/principleisapromise.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/principleisapromise.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}