Former President of Honduras Is Freed From Prison After Trump Pardon

Source: NY Times

President Trump formally pardoned former President Juan Orlando Hernández of Honduras on Monday evening, fulfilling a vow he had made days before to free an ex-president who was at the center of what the authorities had characterized as “one of the largest and most violent drug-trafficking conspiracies in the world.”

Mr. Trump’s pledge to pardon Mr. Hernández last week came hours after he had received a fawning letter in which Mr. Hernández cast himself as the victim of “political persecution” by the Biden-Harris administration, comparing his fate to that of the American president.

The four-page letter was dated Oct. 28. But it was provided to Mr. Trump by Roger J. Stone Jr., Mr. Trump’s longtime on-and-off political adviser, just hours before Mr. Trump announced his plan to pardon Mr. Hernández, Mr. Stone said on his own radio show on Sunday.

A White House official said Mr. Trump had not seen the letter before he posted on his social media platform, Truth Social, on Friday about the coming clemency grant. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity, saying the administration by matter of routine did not discuss pardons on the record. Mr. Hernández’s lawyer said on Tuesday that his client had been released from a federal prison in West Virginia. The White House confirmed the pardon had been issued. The promised pardon had caused an uproar before it was carried out, given the serious narcotics crimes of which Mr. Hernández was convicted and Mr. Trump’s stated ambition of curbing the flow of drugs into the United States, and, in particular, his monthslong push against Nicolás Maduro, the Venezuelan leader.



Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/02/us/politics/hernandez-honduras-trump.html