Donald Trump announced on Friday that he will grant “a full and complete pardon” to Juan Orlando Hernández, the former president of Honduras who is serving a 45-year sentence in the United States for conspiring to import cocaine and for weapons offences.
Hernández, 56, was convicted in March 2024 by a federal jury in Manhattan after prosecutors said he accepted millions of dollars in bribes, including US $1 million from Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, to shield drug shipments bound for the United States. Judge P. Kevin Castel, who imposed the sentence in June 2024, described Hernández as “a two-faced politician hungry for power” and said the cocaine he protected had caused “unfathomable destruction”.
In a post on Truth Social, Mr Trump 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.” The message ended: “MAKE HONDURAS GREAT AGAIN!”
The announcement came minutes after Mr Trump returned to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida for the Thanksgiving weekend. Hernández’s lawyer, Renato Stabile, said he learned of the pardon when the former president’s wife telephoned him in tears on Friday afternoon. An appeal had been scheduled for the week of 8 December.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, which prosecuted the case, declined to comment. A Drug Enforcement Administration agent who worked on the investigation, speaking anonymously as he was not authorised to comment publicly, called the decision “lunacy”. Mike Vigil, former chief of international operations at the agency, warned that the pardon “would destroy the credibility of the U.S. in the international community”.
The case against Hernández spanned both the Trump and Biden administrations. Investigators began presenting evidence during Mr Trump’s first term, and the conviction was secured under President Biden. Attorney-General Merrick Garland said at the time that Hernández had “abused his power to support one of the largest and most violent drug-trafficking conspiracies in the world”.
Mr Trump’s statement also endorsed Nasry “Tito” Asfura, the National Party candidate in Honduras’s presidential election on Sunday. Polls show Mr Asfura in a tight three-way contest with Rixi Moncada of the ruling Libre Party and television host Salvador Nasralla of the Liberal Party. The winner will govern from 2026 to 2030.
“If Tito wins, the United States will be very supportive,” Mr Trump wrote. “If he doesn’t, the United States will not be throwing good money after bad.” He labelled Mr Nasralla “a borderline Communist” whose candidacy was designed to split the anti-Libre vote.
Honduras has been governed since 2022 by President Xiomara Castro, whose Libre Party has forged ties with Cuba and Venezuela. Ms Castro has nonetheless preserved the long-standing extradition treaty with Washington and allowed a U.S. military base to continue anti-narcotics operations on Honduran soil.
Mr Trump has simultaneously intensified U.S. military action against suspected drug smugglers, authorising air strikes on small boats in the Caribbean and Pacific that the administration claims are linked to narcotics trafficking. More than 80 people have been killed since the operations began in August, drawing criticism from the United Nations and legal experts who say no evidence has been produced that the vessels were carrying drugs.
Hernández served as president from 2014 to 2022. His second term, secured after a disputed 2017 election that triggered protests in which at least 23 people died, was dogged by allegations of corruption. His brother, former congressman Juan Antonio Hernández, was convicted of drug trafficking in 2019 in the same New York courthouse. Emil Bove, a lead prosecutor in that case, later became one of Mr Trump’s personal lawyers.
Since leaving office in January 2022, Hernández has been held in a federal prison. He still faces no charges in Honduras, where reaction to the pardon was swift. Manuel Zelaya, former president and husband of the current head of state, wrote on social media that Mr Trump had “absolved the looter of the state”. Analyst Leonardo Pineda predicted the decision would revive the anti-corruption sentiment that helped remove Hernández from power.
Votes will be cast on Sunday. The Organization of American States and the United States have both said they are monitoring the election closely.