In Front of Our Noses: Plans to Pardon a Convicted Drug Cartel Leader
(While murdering people without due process because of [checks notes] drugs.)
“To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.”-George Orwell.
For previous entries, click here.
After taking a couple of days off from blogging to enjoy family, I find myself not knowing where to begin with the cavalcade of nonsense pouring out from the administration. Let’s start by following from James Joyner’s post, wherein the Secretary of Defense has been ordering the murder of suspected drug traffickers in the Caribbean, to include blowing up survivors clinging to rubble, to the President of the United States who is so very worried about drugs that he plans to pardon a man convicted in the US of facilitating massive inflows of drugs into the United States.
Via the AP: Trump says he plans to pardon former Honduran President Hernandez for 2024 drug trafficking sentence.
President Donald Trump said Friday that he will be pardoning former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, who in 2024 was convicted for drug trafficking and weapons charges and sentenced to 45 years in prison.
The president explained his decision on social media by posting that “according to many people that I greatly respect,” Hernandez was “treated very harshly and unfairly.”
In March of last year, Hernandez was convicted in U.S. court of conspiring to import cocaine into the U.S.A. He had served served two terms as the leader of the Central American nation of roughly 10 million people.
Here’s info on Hernandez from a 2024 Department of Justice report (Juan Orlando Hernández, Former President of Honduras, Sentenced to 45 Years in Prison for Conspiring to Distribute More Than 400 Tons of Cocaine and Related Firearms Offenses):
According to court documents, from at least in or about 2004, up to and including in or about 2022, Hernández, the former two-term president of Honduras and former president of the Honduran National Congress, was at the center of one of the largest and most violent drug-trafficking conspiracies in the world. During his political career, Hernández abused his powerful positions and authority in Honduras to facilitate the importation of over 400 tons of cocaine into the U.S. Hernández’s co-conspirators were armed with machine guns and destructive devices, including AK-47s, AR-15s, and grenade launchers, which they used to protect their massive cocaine loads as they transited across Honduras on their way to the United States, protect the money they made from the eventual sale of this cocaine, and guard their drug-trafficking territory from rivals. Hernández 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. In turn, as Hernández rose to power in Honduras, he provided increased support and protection for his co-conspirators, allowing them to move mountains of cocaine, commit acts of violence and murder, and help turn Honduras into one of the most dangerous countries in the world.
From the BBC write-up of the trial (Ex-president of Honduras found guilty of drug crimes):
[Prosecutors] said drug traffickers paid him millions of dollars in bribes to allow cocaine to be smuggled from Colombia and Venezuela through Honduras on to the US.
In one allegation, prosecutors said that Mexican drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán had given Tony Hernández – the ex-president’s younger brother – $1m (£778,450) as a bribe for Juan Orlando Hernández.
During his trial, several convicted drug traffickers testified that they had bribed Hernández.
Prosecutors also alleged that he had used the drug money to then bribe officials to manipulate Honduras’ 2013 and 2017 presidential elections in his favour.
But, you know, he said nice things about Trump during his first term, and there are linkages to the current presidential election in Honduras, so what’s a few hundred tons of cocaine between friends?
But those guys in boats, no quarter!
Here’s the Truth Social post that links the pardon and the upcoming presidential elections in Honduras.
Since “Stranger Things” is back, we may as well just admit we are fully in the Upside Down.
Pardoning drug lords while committing war crimes to kill what is said to be drug smugglers… Inquiries into congresspeople that dare suggest that we not commit war crimes against the constitution… Deporting law abiding immigrants to dark site foreign prisons, just because they made the error of going to an appointment pursuing their citizenship, so that ICE can fulfil a quota… Suggesting stripping away citizenship from First Gen Americans… Stipping citizenship and deporting generational Americans… Preparing via training the National Guard to put down insurrection and protest in all 50 states, even though there is absolutely no basis or request for having armed troops positioned by the federal government against US Citizens … Ignoring court judgements and rulings to just do what they want… all the while with money flowing upwards directly to the presidency from billionaires and corporations.
I’ve seen several WWII era films where they were trying to make a point of how horrid the enemy was by showing the following: that once a ship was disabled and sinking that the “enemy” would machine gun down survivors… To make the point of how evil they are and how justified we are to fight that evil…
Now, that is us. All of us have this blood on our hands.
And we are not a full year into Trump’s presidency, and we are fully committing crimes against humanity… with even the Pope speaking out against us.
I feel that we have crossed some last line of where we were as America to what we are now. There are no more lines for us to cross. We are no longer America.
I am beyond lost.
I believe in a future Congress, that there will be support to amend the Constitution to put limits on the President’s pardon powers and the states will rapidly ratify.
This is why, in most OECD countries, the power of pardon is tightly constrained and rarely used, except in regard of obvious miscarriages of justice, following judicial review.
Once again the US is a rather odd outlier from the norms, and often does not realise how exceptional it is.
@JohnSF:
Oh, they do realize their different. They just think they’re also better than everyone else.
Related, Heather Cox Richardson on yesterday’s substack delves into the Xitts El Taco posted for thanksgiving. It seem clear to me he’s talking ethnic cleansing and going after dissidents. Those are not the words used, but IMO that’s what they mean.
Allegedly it’s about immigrants, but we’ve seen how many citizens the ICE crackdown has taken.
I have to ask. If El Taco decides to suspend the midterm elections, or otherwise violently suppress the vote, or outright rig some kind of fraud (like seizing the voting machines and ballots), can anything be done to stop him?
@Kathy:
At that point you are into quasi-civil war territory.
It’s surprising to me that so many MAGA, who account themselves “students of history”, fail to realise how bad things can get, and how quickly, once the guardrails are overturned.
See UK 1640 to 1688.
See France 1788 to ?.
See Japan 1920’s-30’s
See Spain 1930’s.
etc etc
Assuming stability AND that your opponents will put up with anything AND you have automatic power supremacy “because reasons” has often led to problems.
The president’s critics get so emotional. If narco-terrorists deserve to be killed without due process, surely it follows logically that anyone convicted of being a narco-terrorist after being afforded due process deserves to be declared innocent. It couldn’t be plainer.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
@Ken_L:
And, obviously, that the President may deem anyone, foreign or domestic, a “terrorist” liable to lethal sanctions outside of legal constraint.
And may also pardon them at will.
(“Please apply here for contribtions to the Trump crypto emolument fund.”)