WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, issued a statement following President Trump’s reckless decision to pardon Juan Orlando Hernandez, who was convicted of supporting one of the largest drug trafficking conspiracies in the world, according to the U.S. Department of Justice:
“Juan Orlando Hernandez is a convicted narcotics leader who was found guilty by a U.S. jury of a decades-long conspiracy to traffic over 400 tons of illegal drugs into the United States. According to court documents, during his time in power in Honduras he accepted millions of dollars in bribes from El Chapo and other drug lords, used his country's security forces to safeguard drug shipments and pretended to cooperate with U.S. authorities while actually leading a state-sponsored drug trafficking enterprise aimed at flooding the U.S. with cocaine. Hernandez's conviction last year finally held him accountable for all the Honduran and American blood on his hands and sent an unequivocal message: no drug trafficker is above the law, not even former presidents.
“That is precisely why all Americans should be outraged by President Trump's pardoning of former President Hernandez. Nothing about this decision makes America safer. Instead, it calls into question counternarcotics efforts, including the justification the Trump Administration has been using for its lethal strikes in the Caribbean and Pacific.
“President Trump should explain how this makes America safer. Because of President Trump, a close ally of narco-traffickers is now walking free at a time when dangerous drugs continue to kill tens of thousands of Americans each year.”
###