Trump Defends Hernández Pardon, Claims Conviction Was a “Setup” Without Evidence
Days before Honduras heads to the polls, President Donald J. Trump announced on Nov. 28 that he intends to grant a full pardon to — Juan Orlando Hernández, the ex-Honduran president currently serving a 45-year sentence in the United States after his 2024 conviction on cocaine-trafficking and weapons charges.
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Hernández’s case was among the highest-profile prosecutions of a Latin American leader in decades. U.S. prosecutors had argued he conspired with drug traffickers and used state security forces to protect major cocaine shipments headed for the United States. The conviction tied Hernández to the alleged smuggling of hundreds of tons of cocaine across decades.
When a reporter pressed Trump on Air Force One, asking why he would pardon someone labeled a “notorious drug trafficker,” Trump said many in Honduras believe the conviction was a politically motivated setup. He added he had reviewed the facts and agreed with that assessment. On the question of evidence, Trump responded: “You can take any country … if somebody sells drugs in that country, that doesn’t mean you arrest the president and put him in jail for the rest of his life.”
Critics have seized on the pardon — and its timing. The decision well aligns with Trump’s latest public endorsement of conservative Honduran candidate Nasry Asfura, less than a week before the election. Many accuse Trump of using executive clemency to influence foreign elections and undercut decades of U.S. anti-narcotics policy.
No new public evidence has emerged to substantiate Trump’s claims that Hernández’s prosecution was unjust or politically driven. Independent reporting continues to cite the original court findings and testimony of trafficker-witnesses as establishing Hernández’s guilt beyond reasonable doubt.
What happens next hinges on when (or if) Trump’s pardon is formally issued — and whether Honduras’s electorate reacts to what critics describe as a bold intervention by a U.S. president just days before their national vote.