“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.
