For months, President Donald Trump has railed towards Latin American narcoterrorists flooding america with “deadly poison.” He has used the scourge of drug trafficking as a rationale for dozens of army strikes on alleged drug boats within the Caribbean and japanese Pacific Ocean, which have left greater than 140 people dead.
Final month, Trump cheered a army assault by U.S. forces that captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his spouse, Cilia Flores, and introduced them to the U.S. to face prices associated to cocaine trafficking. Maduro, Trump said, led a “vicious cartel” that “flooded our nation with deadly poison chargeable for the deaths of numerous People.”
However on the subject of former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who was tried and convicted within the U.S. in 2024 and sentenced to 45 years in jail for taking bribes and permitting traffickers to export greater than 400 tons of cocaine to the U.S., Trump has taken a decidedly softer tone.
Hernández, he mentioned, has been “handled very harshly and unfairly” — so unfairly that on Dec. 1, Trump pardoned the previous president after he served lower than 4 of these 45 years.
However the federal authorities’s magnanimity didn’t finish there. On the day he was to be launched, information present, Hernández had an immigration detainer — a request for legislation enforcement businesses to carry noncitizens for pickup by Immigration and Customs Enforcement — in place.
Right here, too, the Trump’s administration’s remedy of Hernández differed from its public goals. Different noncitizens caught up in current immigration sweeps — the vast majority of whom do not have criminal records — have confronted swift efforts to deport them, even to international locations the place they could face threats. However in Hernández’s case, the Federal Bureau of Prisons scrambled to get his detainer eliminated so he may stroll free.
And Hernández didn’t simply stroll out of the jail. Regardless of persistent budget and staffing shortages, jail officers paid a specialised tactical crew extra time to drive Hernández from a high-security facility in West Virginia to the famed five-star Waldorf Astoria resort in New York Metropolis, in accordance with information and three folks conversant in the state of affairs. Earlier than he left, Hernández was allowed to make use of the captain’s authorities telephone to speak to the federal jail system’s deputy director, Joshua Smith, who was convicted in a drug trafficking conspiracy earlier than Trump pardoned him in 2021.
“The [prisons bureau] administration rolled out the purple carpet for him,” mentioned Joe Rojas, a retired jail employee and former union chief who has been talking to the media on behalf of workers who concern reprisals for doing so since bureau leaders stopped recognizing the union final 12 months. “The workers are disgusted.”
Renato Stabile, the court-appointed lawyer representing Hernández — who has long maintained his innocence — mentioned his shopper’s remedy was acceptable.
“It will be notably merciless to grant someone a pardon and have them launched from jail — solely to have them instantly shipped again to a spot like Honduras the place they might’ve instantly arrested him or he would’ve been killed on website by prison parts that needed to do him hurt,” Stabile advised ProPublica. By way of his legal professional, Hernández declined to remark.
ICE referred all inquiries to the White Home, which responded with a hyperlink to a November social media post saying the President’s intent to pardon Hernández. Smith didn’t reply to an emailed request for remark. A BOP spokesperson mentioned in an emailed assertion that the bureau doesn’t talk about circumstances of confinement or safety procedures and that worker requirements of conduct prohibit workers from giving any prisoners preferential remedy. “Violators could also be topic to disciplinary actions, together with removing from federal service and prison prosecution,” the assertion mentioned.
The investigation that finally ensnared Hernández stretched throughout a number of U.S. presidencies. Regardless of looming authorized hassle stateside and widespread allegations of corruption in his nation, Hernández — usually identified by his initials, JOH — was seen as a key U.S. ally beneath the Obama and first Trump administrations, ostensibly due to his obvious willingness to assist deal with drug trafficking and migration points.
In 2012, as president of Honduras’ Nationwide Congress, he famously pushed by a legal change permitting for the extradition of accused criminals to the U.S. — a reform that his legal professional identified was satirically later used to extradite him.
However in 2018, lower than midway by Hernández’s second time period as president, the Drug Enforcement Administration arrested his younger brother, former Honduran congressman Tony Hernández, in Miami for a collection of weapons and drug trafficking prices. A jury discovered him responsible the next 12 months at a Manhattan federal trial by which Emil Bove — the federal prosecutor who would later turn out to be Trump’s private protection lawyer — gave a closing argument replete with allegations implicating the Honduran president in prison schemes. (Bove couldn’t be reached for remark.)
Though the sprawling prison case targeted on narcotrafficking issues, Juan Orlando Hernández’s political profession was fraught in different methods. Dana Frank, a College of California, Santa Cruz historical past professor who studies Honduras, described him as a “repressive prison on a number of fronts.”
Whereas in congress in 2012, he led a “technical coup” in overthrowing the supreme court, she mentioned. Then, he ran for reelection to the presidency in 2017 “in full violation of the constitution,” she mentioned. Amid the ensuing protests, safety forces shot and killed not less than 16 folks, together with two youngsters, amongst different human rights abuses, a United Nations report found. Hernández has mentioned little publicly, however his authorities advised the U.N. it will look into these circumstances. His party has tweeted that it has an “unwavering dedication to democracy and freedom.”
Weeks after Hernández left workplace in 2022, he was arrested at his house in Honduras and extradited to the U.S. to face drug trafficking and weapons prices. Prosecutors said he funded his political profession with thousands and thousands of {dollars} he acquired from “violent drug-trafficking organizations” in trade for permitting them to “transfer mountains of cocaine” in a foreign country.
Stabile advised ProPublica the case towards his shopper was all the time a weak one, relying closely on the phrase of unreliable drug traffickers with outlandish tales and little in the way in which of laborious proof.
Nonetheless, the federal government’s case was sufficient to persuade a jury to convict Hernández after just over eight hours of deliberations, and in June 2024 he was sentenced to 45 years in federal jail. Afterward, Stabile and his shopper started engaged on an appeal, which at that time gave the impression to be Hernández’s solely shot at freedom.
Early final 12 months, jail officers transferred Hernández out of the federal detention heart in Brooklyn, which largely holds pretrial detainees, and despatched him to the high-security Hazelton penitentiary in West Virginia. Dubbed “Distress Mountain,” the notoriously violent jail is identical facility the place mob boss James “Whitey” Bulger was crushed to loss of life in his cell hours after his arrival in 2018.
But jail sources mentioned Hernández appeared to do his time quietly, ultimately touchdown within the coveted housing unit put aside for a therapeutic program used to deal with drug dependancy, psychological sickness and “prison pondering errors.”
However after Trump returned to workplace final 12 months, a a lot faster path to freedom immediately appeared attainable: a pardon.
Like Trump, Hernández was a member of his nation’s right-wing social gathering. And, like Trump, he believed he’d been focused by leftist forces. He additionally had different causes to be hopeful.
Throughout his time in workplace, Hernández had championed the creation of particular financial zones that might set their very own taxes and laws, a transfer that benefitted the Trump-aligned Silicon Valley titans who invested in them, together with Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen. However the legislation was repealed by his successor, center-left party Libre member Xiomara Castro, placing plans for the zones in jeopardy. (Andreessen responded to a request for remark with a hyperlink to a social media post disavowing any involvement within the pardon. Thiel couldn’t be reached for remark, although he has beforehand mentioned he was not involved either.)
Longtime political operative Roger Stone additionally steered in a blog post co-authored with conservative activist Shane Trejo in January 2025 that pardoning Hernández may have political advantages for Trump. Within the put up, Trejo and Stone — who was pardoned by Trump 5 years in the past after he was convicted of obstructing a congressional investigation into Russian election interference — urged the president to “crush socialism and save a freedom metropolis in Honduras” with a “well-timed pardon” that “might be the ultimate loss of life blow to [Xiomara] Castro” within the 2025 elections.
Finally, Stone took on a extra direct function in advocating for clemency when he gave Trump a four-page letter Hernández had written to the U.S. president, asking for a pardon and making the case that his conviction was a “political persecution” by the Biden administration. In a textual content message with ProPublica, Stone mentioned he had acquired the letter from a journalist who’d gotten it from the household. He emphasised repeatedly that he was not compensated for his involvement.
“I learn the letter after which did my very own analysis and elected to ship the letter to President Trump,” Stone wrote. “I truly had no contact with JOH or anybody in his household till after the pardon.”
On Nov. 28, two days earlier than the Honduran presidential election, Trump introduced his intent to pardon Hernández. Stabile mentioned he didn’t be taught the information till Ana García Carías, the previous president’s spouse, referred to as him in tears:
“He’s letting him out! Trump’s pardoning Juan Orlando!”
She despatched Stabile a screenshot from Truth Social, the place Trump had written that he would grant him a “Full and Full Pardon.”
The choice met with bipartisan backlash from lawmakers. Sen. Tim Kaine, a Democrat from Virginia, called the unexpected reprieve “disgusting and incomprehensible,” whereas Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican, described it as “horrible optics.”
In his put up, Trump additionally urged Hondurans to vote for the Nationwide Social gathering candidate, Nasry “Tito” Asfura, who was trailing in multiple polls, including what to observers of Latin American politics was a thinly veiled menace: If Asfura didn’t win, Trump mentioned, the U.S. would “not be throwing good cash after dangerous” in assist of Honduras.
The message was apparent, consultants mentioned. “That pardon was a transparent inexperienced gentle for the Nationwide Social gathering to control the vote,” one former high-ranking U.S. diplomat advised ProPublica.
In the long run, Asfura narrowly edged out center-right candidate Salvador Nasralla and handily defeated the incumbent Libre social gathering. However the depend was stricken by delays, reports of voter intimidation and allegations of fraud, and Nasralla later formally challenged the outcome.
On Dec. 1 — whereas the votes have been nonetheless being counted in Honduras — Trump posted once more on Reality Social in assist of Asfura. “Seems like Honduras is attempting to vary the outcomes of their Presidential Election. In the event that they do, there might be hell to pay!” The previous president’s pardon formally went by that very same day.
That night at Hazelton, after the prisoners had already been fed dinner, corrections officers confirmed up on the housing unit to get Hernández. Smith, the bureau’s deputy director, needed to talk with him. The newly pardoned inmate was escorted to the captain’s workplace, the place he used the captain’s telephone to speak to Smith, his fellow pardon recipient, in accordance with a supply conversant in the state of affairs. The transfer shocked present and former jail workers.
Hernández was additionally allowed to speak along with his household, who then phoned Stabile and advised him the excellent news. Throughout the hour, Stabile mentioned, he bought a name from Smith, inquiring a few launch plan.
“I’m in Manhattan and he’s in West Virginia,” Stabile advised Smith. “It will take me six hours to come back decide him up. Are you able to transport him?”
As a result of most inmate releases are achieved through the daytime, jail workers needed to be referred to as again in to deal with the paperwork and logistics of releasing an inmate. However there was an issue: Hernández had an immigration maintain.
When noncitizens are convicted of crimes within the U.S., immigration officers routinely signal detainers asking prisons and jails to show them over to ICE for attainable deportation proceedings following their launch date. In Hernández’s case, information present immigration brokers despatched the jail discover of a detainer in February 2025, two months after he was sentenced in courtroom.
For a number of hours on the evening of his launch, jail officers scrambled to get the detainer eliminated so he may stroll free, in accordance with a number of sources conversant in the state of affairs.
“It’s undoubtedly particular remedy. That’s not usually the way in which it goes,” mentioned Lena Graber, a senior workers legal professional on the Immigrant Authorized Useful resource Middle. “Most individuals with drug convictions would by no means get their ICE detainer eliminated simply because the conviction was pardoned.”
Information present immigration officers lifted the detainer on Hernández simply after 11 p.m.
Usually, in accordance with a supply conversant in the state of affairs, prisoners who’re launched from Hazelton when there’s inclement climate or when it’s too late within the day to catch a airplane or bus house are put up on the Microtel Inn and Suites on the backside of the hill. It’s a two-star resort the place a room prices $69 per evening. Within the morning, they’re given a ticket and despatched on their means.
However for Hernández, jail officers activated a four-man tactical crew, paying not less than three of them extra time to drive him to the luxurious resort in Manhattan, in accordance with authorities information and legislation enforcement sources. A normal room there prices greater than $1,000 per evening. Stabile declined to touch upon the place Hernández stayed however mentioned the federal government didn’t pay for it.
It was one other transfer that shocked prisons bureau workers. One official referred to as it “completely fucking nuts,” including, “I don’t even assume that’s ever been achieved, not only for a pardoned inmate however for anybody who’s been launched.” One other agreed that it was unprecedented: “Normally, they get a shitty bus trip or an affordable airplane ticket. They don’t get the carpet rolled out for them.”
As of now, the previous president’s whereabouts are unknown. A number of days after his launch, Hernández said in Spanish in a social media post that he had “no intention of returning to Honduras” instantly as a result of he and his household can be in “grave hazard given the evident persecution and the weaponization of justice towards me.”
If Hernández is within the U.S., it’s unclear what his immigration standing is.
In the meantime, Honduran officers have issued a warrant for Hernández’s arrest over years-old fraud allegations and, in a social media put up, requested Interpol and different worldwide allies to honor it. However a legislation enforcement official conversant in the state of affairs advised ProPublica there may be at present no pending Interpol purple discover asking for legislation enforcement to detain him. The one request the community acquired to problem such a discover, the official mentioned, was declined whereas Hernández was nonetheless in jail.
