Pardoning a big-time drug criminal makes Caribbean killings even more disturbing

On Monday Juan Orlando Hernández, the former president of Honduras, was released from a high-security federal prison in West Virginia. President Donald Trump pardoned him despite a yearslong federal prosecution resulting in his 2022 conspiracy conviction for flooding the United States with 400 tons of cocaine. He was sentenced to 45 years.

The case produced charges of taking a $1 million bribe from drug criminal Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán in exchange for protecting narcotics routes through Honduras.

Despite extensive efforts by the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York to make the case, and Hernández’s exercise of his rights as a defendant, Trump claimed on social media that prosecutors treated him “very harshly and unfairly.” He threw in a fact-free claim that the case was a witch hunt by the Biden administration. The pardon was linked to an obsequious letter from Hernández full of flattery and claims of “persecution” purportedly like that of the American president, whom he addressed as “Your Excellency.”

Trump’s use of his broad pardon powers for those whom many people may find unworthy has produced controversy before. But this one completely clashes with his own rhetoric on drug cartels hurting Americans. It directly flies in the face of his claim of fighting alleged narco-terrorism in the Caribbean Sea through extrajudicial killings.

The glaring contradiction emerged all at once.

Also Monday, the White House confirmed that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth authorized the Sept. 2 attacks on an alleged drug trafficking vessel in the Caribbean. Hegseth said Tuesday that Adm. Frank Bradley specifically ordered a second strike that killed survivors clinging to the burning vessel.

Military and legal experts say such a scenario would constitute an illegal act by the United States. From the start, the legitimacy of the many American military attacks on boats that reportedly killed more than 80 people has been in serious question, even from some Senate Republicans otherwise allied with the White House.

Congressional inquiries must quickly ramp up. What’s already disturbing — maybe even unprecedented — is that the administration makes little or no effort to offer coherent public explanations or release relevant information that could account for its doings.

When will we see evidence that those on the boats were even criminals? How can the administration assert any legal authority to order these executions? What will be the role of Congress? How does Trump reconcile these attacks with pardoning a powerful political figure solidly convicted of drug smuggling that addicted and killed Americans? Astonishingly, Trump said Tuesday that he may order land attacks on any nation manufacturing or selling drugs "into our country.”

Failing to honestly explain any of this shows the administration's belittling contempt for the public — including those who want to believe in the president’s stated law-and-order and anti-drug goals.