Honduras' former President Juan Orlando Hernandez walks towards a DEA plane for his extradition to the United States, to face a trial on drug trafficking and arms possession charges, at the Hernan Acosta Mejia Air Force base in Tegucigalpa, Honduras.
In April 2022, US authorities extradited Juan Orlando Hernández from Honduras to stand trial for running a violent drug trafficking conspiracy and helping to smuggle hundreds of tons of cocaine to the US. In 2024, he was convicted by a New York jury and sentenced to 45 years for three counts of drug trafficking and weapons conspiracy.
On Friday, Trump promised to pardon him.
It's hard to keep up. On the one hand, Hegseth orders the extra-judicial execution of people on boats in international waters on the mere suspicion of drug running. On the other hand, his boss is releasing convicted narco terrorists from well-earned, long-term prison sentences. Why?
The difference is that Hernández is a corrupt conservative politician who served two terms as Honduras's President. And the boat-dead are anonymous and powerless brown people.
Trump is so proud of his absolution that he boasted of it in a Truth Social Post in which he wrote:
I will be granting a Full and Complete Pardon to Former President Juan Orlando Hernandez who has been, according to many people that I greatly respect, treated very harshly and unfairly. This cannot be allowed to happen,
Trump has several distinguishing characteristics. One is that he knows many people he never names. Cynics will say this is because they exist only in his imagination. Which, absent Trump revealing any evidence for their physical existence, is as likely as anything else.
In addition, beyond the fact that he respects these "many people", Trump provides no insight into their expertise in the matter. And why their opinion should count for more than that of 12 citizens who, having listened to the evidence presented against a well-defended man, afforded due process in a trial run by a legitimately selected and senatorially approved judge, found the facts proved him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
Also, Trump's concern for people being treated "very harshly and unfairly" is as consistent as his stance on drug trafficking. If only he would visit this compassion on the thousands of non-violent, non-felonious victims of his capricious immigration purges. Victims who include many people in the US legitimately, and even citizens
His freeing of a major-weight drug dealer was part of a larger message of support for the Honduran National Party, which, the reader will not be shocked to discover, is lodged firmly on the far right.
In the post, Trump throws his support behind Tito Asfura in Sunday’s Honduran presidential elections. In doing so, he places his thumb on the scale of a foreign election by threatening the finances of the Honduran people if they do the wrong thing. He writes
If Tito Asfura wins for President of Honduras, because the United States has so much confidence in him, his Policies, and what he will do for the Great People of Honduras, we will be very supportive. If he doesn't win, the United States will not be throwing good money after bad.
Ironically, in a post that shows him as the expedient autocrat, knob-polishing opportunist he is, Trump offers one undeniable truth, to wit.
"A wrong Leader can only bring catastrophic results to a country, no matter which country it is.
Paradoxically, he makes this astute observation while oblivious to its self-referential truth.
I doubt that Trump knows who any of these people are — unless they have paid for his attention. However, it is reasonable to assume that there are agents of his administration who are up to date on who's who in the fascist cabal. And that they provide the boss with a list of global politicos most likely to grease Trump's financial skids.
Unsurprisingly, both Hernandez and Trump’s new best friend, the current National Party standard bearer Tito Asfura, carry the taint of self-dealing. Beyond profiting from the illegal drug trade, Hernandez is accused by international election observers of electoral fraud in his 2017 election.
Juan Orlando is not alone in his illegal activity. In 2017, the Drug Enforcement Agency in Miami arrested Hernández's brother, Juan Antonio Hernández, for drug trafficking and for using Honduran military personnel and equipment to ship cocaine to the United States on behalf of the Mexican Sinaloa Cartel.
His sister, Hilda Hernández, was the funding chief of the National Party when it received money from shell companies that, in turn, got cash from the Honduran Social Security agency to pay for work that had never been done.
The new guy appears cut from the same cloth, though he has a better record in dealing with corruption allegations. In 2020, Asfura was indicted in Honduras on charges of diverting more than 28 million lempiras ($1.07 million) in public funds into his private pocket. The judiciary seized nine real estate properties and three businesses belonging to him. However, all the charges against him were dismissed.
In early October 2021, Asfura was listed in the Pandora Papers. Which raises the question, why does he need to keep money anonymous? It is not the behavior of an upright citizen.
At the risk of reducing the complex web of criminality, venality, drug dealing, and international politics to oversimplification, what we have here is a President of one country doing a solid for the once, and, he hopes, future President of another country. Why? Does one have to ask?
