"In a federal courtroom in New York City last year, a crime boss from the most notorious drug cartel in Honduras took the stand to testify against Juan Orlando Hernández, the country's former President. "They should have tried to catch us," he said, of the Honduran government, which Hernández led from 2014 to 2022. Instead, "they allied with us." The former President was found to be responsible for more than four hundred tons of cocaine reaching the United States."
"On November 28th, two days before national elections in Honduras, President Trump announced that he was pardoning Hernández, who was just a year into a forty-five-year sentence he was serving in a federal prison in West Virginia. "It was a Biden setup," Trump said. "I looked at the facts." Though the White House denied it, such facts had apparently come via the political operative Roger Stone, who'd handed the President a letter from Hernández"
Testimony from a Honduran crime boss implicated former President Juan Orlando Hernández in collaborating with drug traffickers; he led Honduras from 2014 to 2022 and was found responsible for more than four hundred tons of cocaine reaching the United States. The Justice Department built cases against his family and associates over years, most actively during Donald Trump's first term. On November 28th, two days before Honduran elections, President Trump pardoned Hernández, who was serving a forty-five-year sentence. Roger Stone delivered a letter from Hernández praising Trump. The pardon coincided with U.S. military boat attacks in the Caribbean that have killed at least eighty-seven people and appear to violate law, and reporting alleged a Defense Department order to kill survivors of a September strike.
Read at The New Yorker
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