President Donald Trump announced Friday that he will grant a “full and complete pardon” to Juan Orlando Hernández, the former president of Honduras currently serving a 45-year sentence in federal prison after being convicted in 2024 of conspiring to import more than 400 tons of cocaine into the United States. The announcement came just two days before Honduras held its presidential election, with Trump explicitly endorsing conservative National Party candidate Nasry “Tito” Asfura while threatening to withdraw U.S. support if he loses.
Trump justified the pardon on Truth Social by claiming that “according to many people that I greatly respect,” Hernández was “treated very harshly and unfairly.”
The decision has ignited criticism given the Trump administration’s simultaneous military escalation against drug trafficking in the Caribbean, where the U.S. has deployed its largest carrier strike group in decades and conducted strikes that have killed more than 80 individuals on suspected drug-running vessels. Trump has spent the last year targeting Mexico, Canada and China over drug imports while also targeting immigrants.
Hernández was extradited to the United States in April 2022, weeks after leaving office, and convicted in March 2024 on three counts related to drug trafficking and weapons conspiracy.
The indictment alleged that between 2004 and 2022, Hernández participated in a conspiracy to facilitate the importation of hundreds of thousands of kilograms of cocaine through Honduras and into the United States. Prosecutors alleged he received millions of dollars in bribes from major drug trafficking organizations, including the Sinaloa Cartel, in exchange for using his political power, law enforcement agencies, and the military to protect drug shipments.
Among the most damning evidence was testimony that Hernández accepted a $1 million bribe from Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán in 2013 while campaigning for president. A confessed former drug trafficker testified he personally witnessed El Chapo present the money, organized in stacks of $50,000 and $100,000, to Hernández’s brother Tony, who delivered it for the campaign. Prosecutors also introduced testimony that Hernández once declared he wanted to “shove the drugs right up the noses of the gringos” while vowing to deceive U.S. officials about his counternarcotics efforts.
Judge P. Kevin Castel, who presided over the case, described Hernández as a “two-faced politician hungry for power” who publicly presented himself as an anti-drug crusader while secretly collaborating with traffickers. Former Attorney General Merrick Garland stated at sentencing that Hernández “abused his presidency to operate the country as a narco-state where violent traffickers operated with near-total impunity.”
Trump has pardoned nine other individuals convicted of federal drug offenses during his second term.
