WSJ: How a Man Convicted of Running a Latin American Narco State Landed a Pardon

quote:

---

President Trump’s pardon of former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández was the result of something extraordinary for a Central American leader and convicted cocaine trafficker—a web of powerful advocates stretching from Washington to Mar-a-Lago.

Trump’s announcement stunned the president’s allies and some members of his administration, including officials who spent years building the landmark case against Hernández, according to people familiar with the matter. The decision allowed Hernández, who had been serving a 45-year prison sentence for conspiring with cartels to ship 400 tons of cocaine to the U.S., to walk free this week as the Trump administration escalates its war on narco-traffickers by launching airstrikes on low-level smugglers at sea.

The move wiped out Hernández’s conviction with little explanation and sparked outrage from Democrats and some Republicans in Washington.

The pardon, which Trump announced in the run-up to elections in Honduras, was the result of a lobbying campaign months in the making. Hernández’s appeal had quietly circulated since January through a tight orbit of Trump confidants and conservative media personalities.

Trump has privately told advisers in recent days that he decided to grant the pardon after his allies in Florida, including longtime confidant Roger Stone and members of his Mar-a-Lago club, pushed for it, according to a person who spoke to him. Trump told reporters this week that “the people of Honduras” had asked him to pardon Hernández, blaming then-President Joe Biden for targeting the former Honduran leader. The White House declined to detail Trump’s conversations with Hondurans and defended the pardon, pointing to the president’s public comments.

Hernández, a savvy political operator from a coffee-growing family in Honduras’s highlands who was president from 2014 to 2022, spent a decade building powerful allies in the U.S. During Trump’s first term, he made inroads with Republicans in Washington, attending evangelical events and pitching himself as a staunch ally on migration and security. In 2019, Trump praised him for “stopping drugs at a level that has never happened.”

Hernández also cultivated relationships with American business leaders. He courted Silicon Valley investors by offering semiautonomous “charter city” zones on the country’s Caribbean coast.

---