Kaine, Colleagues Condemn Trump’s Pardon of Ex-Honduran President and Drug Kingpin Juan Orlando Hernández
WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA), who lived in Honduras in 1980 and 1981 and serves as Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, and eleven Democratic Senators introduced a resolution condemning President Donald Trump’s pardon of Juan Orlando Hernández, the former two-term President of Honduras who was sentenced to 45 years in prison and fined $8 million for drug trafficking and weapons conspiracy charges. The resolution emphasizes how President Trump’s pardon of Hernández’s vast crimes weakens the rule of law and severely harms the United States’ credibility in combating global drug trafficking.
The resolution also outlines how President Trump’s pardon is an affront to the extraordinary efforts of federal law enforcement and judicial officials who investigated and prosecuted Hernández, as well as to the jurors who performed their civic duty in convicting him.
“Trump’s pardon of Juan Orlando Hernández – a narcotrafficking kingpin who bragged about ‘shoving the drugs up the noses of the gringos’ as he flooded U.S. communities with more than 400 tons of cocaine – is disgusting,” said Kaine. “This pardon is so bizarre that it’s difficult to fathom any reason why this would happen other than that someone in Trump’s circle is personally benefitting from it. Convicted drug kingpins should be in prison, end of story.”
Hernández was at the center of one of the largest and most violent drug-trafficking conspiracies in the world for nearly two decades. During his tenure as President of Honduras and in the Honduran National Congress, Hernández abused his positions and authority to facilitate the importation of over 400 tons of cocaine into the United States—enough for approximately 4.5 billion individual doses.
As President, Hernández also selectively supported and took credit for extraditions to the United States of certain drug traffickers who threatened his grip on power, including directing the Honduran National Police and military to protect smugglers who paid him off, promising that he would shield them from extradition to the United States. Hernández and his co-conspirators were convicted and sentenced to prison in the United States for their abuse of Honduran institutions to protect and grow their conspiracy.
The resolution was led by U.S. Senator Peter Welch (D-VT) and cosponsored by Senators Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Brian Schatz (D-HI), Adam Schiff (D-CA), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Ron Wyden (D-OR), and John Fetterman (D-PA).
This week, Kaine gave a floor speech denouncing Trump’s pardon of Hernández and the illegal strikes on boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean. Click here to watch the full speech.
Full text of the resolution can be found here.
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