President for the Rich and Powerful
Trump proves that stopping the drug trade means nothing when there's a chance to pardon a dirty politician who made millions by helping to bring 400 tons of cocaine into the U.S.
We are way past the notion that Donald Trump is the President of the entire United States. His supporters may have thought that he would be the President of the Red States. But by now, as his reckless economic activities hurt more and more everyday Americans everywhere, even that picture becomes increasingly disconnected from reality.
Trump was shaping the real picture on Inauguration Day, when he assembled a spineless collection of billionaires as his backdrop when he lied and said he would protect and defend the Constitution. The pursuit and passage of a big ugly bill that cuts some $4.5 trillion in tax revenues—largely to increase the fortunes of the ultra-wealthy at the expense of Americans struggling to pay for groceries and healthcare—made it all too clear.
His repeated lies about lowering food prices and his contemptuous disinterest in the issue of affordability has added more texture to this increasingly ugly image. So has his prioritizing the building of a massive ballroom that few Americans will ever set foot in beyond the richest among us—people who have something that Trump wants.
But if there was a surviving notion that anything Trump was doing was based on serving anyone besides himself and his cronies—for example: End the deadly scourge of drugs!—his pardoning of the former president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández, blows that up.
Trump has been more than pleased to bloviate about his commitment to stop the flow of drugs by murdering over 80 humans in the Caribbean Sea tagged without evidence as "narco-terrorists.” Yes, his criminal and abusive Homeland Security chief, Kristi Noem, could concoct a ridiculous fable to justify this at this week’s cabinet meeting. “You have saved hundreds of millions of lives with the cocaine you’ve blown up in the Caribbean,” she said. (According to the latest data from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, 29,449 cocaine-related overdose deaths were reported in the U.S. in 2023.) But put this imaginary achievement next to this latest pardon.
Handing out a get-out-of-jail pass
Hernández got a criminal conviction and 45-year sentence because he—as the Justice Department described—“helped to facilitate the importation of an almost unfathomable 400 tons of cocaine to this country: billions of individual doses sent to the United States with [his] protection and support.” He was “at the center of one of the largest and most violent drug-trafficking conspiracies in the world,” in which cocaine was transited to the U.S. with the help of “heavily armed Honduran National Police officers to protect their cocaine loads.”
Consider some of the detail in the DOJ’s summary in June last year. Hernández, it stated, “received millions of dollars of drug money from some of the largest and most violent drug-trafficking organizations in Honduras, Mexico, and elsewhere, and used those bribes to fuel his rise in Honduran politics.” And as he rose to power, Hernandez “provided increased support and protection for his co-conspirators, allowing them to move mountains of cocaine, commit acts of violence and murder, and help turn Honduras into one of the most dangerous countries in the world.”
Is this the guy you want to let out of jail, particularly if you’re trying to make the case that cutting down the drug trade is a critical political objective? While Trump condemns Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro as a “narco-terrorist” kingpin, he hypocritically ignores the evidence around Hernández, who allegedly bragged, “[Let’s] stuff the drugs right up the noses of the gringos.”
Were Trump in possession of his cognitive faculties, even he might have grasped that this was a bad look. But Trump’s purpose resides elsewhere—most likely grabbing the oil reserves in Venezuela and, with every other move, pocketing as much cash as he can by befriending the rich and powerful while screwing the common man.
For the more humble among us, it’s hard to grasp why a 79-year-old billionaire really needs to accrue more wealth. But we should never forget that Trump ran out of ideas decades ago—and every corrupt and wrongheaded thing he does now is based on the tired presumptions and dirty habits of his younger self, present facts be damned.
Finally, he gets to put tariffs on everybody! Finally, he can freely call the Somali people (and by association every person of color) “garbage.” Finally, he can call female reporters “piggie” or call them “stupid” to their face and not care what they or anyone thinks.
Trump now gets to let his freak flag fly—that is, the John Roberts-liberated version where the laws do not apply and racist and sexist outbursts are excused by the crucifix-wearing press secretary/propagandist Karoline Leavitt who tells doubters in the press that she serves “the most transparent president in history” and they are lucky for the “unprecedented access” he provides. “I think everyone in this room should appreciate the frankness and the openness that you get from President Trump on a near-daily basis,” Leavitt said recently.
Frankness and openness. That’s why he can blithely excuse Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, excitedly grab the Saudi royal’s hands and display more pleasure in his company than we’ve ever seen from him—except perhaps for when he had Russians in the Oval Office during his first term or was greeting Vladimir Putin in Alaska.
These are the kinds of people Trump loves. The rich. The powerful. The corrupt. The murderous. Everyone else he barely tolerates if not openly despises.
And while Juan Orlando Hernández may not have billions to hand over to Trump, he has played with the big boys and has proven he’s ready to kill to win. Trump sees himself in this former president and drug kingpin who was taken down by a judicial system—in this case the evil Joe Biden’s Justice Department—that failed to grasp that he too should be immunized from the little people who care about things like justice and the rule of law.
Let’s take a look at the letter Hernández wrote to Trump, opening with “Your Excellency” and emphasizing myriad ways his experience mirrors America’s persecuted leader. “Just as you, President Trump, I have suffered political persecution, targeted by the Biden-Harris administration not for any wrongdoing, but for political reasons.” And, “Like you, I sought only to serve my people, to uphold our conservative values while leading unprecedented reforms to make my country stronger and safer. And like you, I was recklessly attacked by radical leftist forces who could not tolerate change.”
Perhaps Trump would not have seen this letter, if not for convicted felon and Trump- pardoned Roger Stone, who lobbied for clemency for the former Honduran president. Stone claims Trump announced “a full and unconditional pardon” on his Truth Social three hours after he sent him the Hernández letter.
Reaping the spoils, the innocent be damned
We can expect plenty more pardons before the most corrupt and criminal occupant of our White House in American history finally goes away, no matter if these decisions conflict with his publicly stated goals.
Because none of that matters to this weakening old man whose great pleasure—perhaps only surpassed by his sadistic pleasure in seeking vengeance against perceived enemies—is to exploit the ruins of public liberty that he’s worked energetically to destroy. Now’s the time, while he still has time, to reap the spoils at a magnitude that no elected official has ever imagined: Various accounts put his grifting at more than $3 billion…so far.
Note to Democrats running for office now: Accountability for Trump and his corrupt and criminal associates can’t come soon enough.
One final note: The week before Trump pardoned Hernández, ICE agents at Boston’s Logan Airport handcuffed and arrested Any Lucia López Belloza, a 19-year-old first-semester college student, who was heading home to Austin, Texas for Thanksgiving.
As The Guardian reported, she was able to call her parents, who contacted a lawyer, and the next day a federal judge barred her deportation for at least 72 hours. “But the next morning, she was shackled at her wrists, ankles and waist and deported to her native Honduras, a country which she left at the age of seven and of which she has virtually no memory.” Tragically, in Trump’s America, the innocent are deported while the worst criminals are pardoned.
Becoming a paid subscriber to America, America—for $50 a year or just $5 a month—helps sustain our work, keeps nearly all the content free for everyone and gives you full access to our dynamic community conversations. It also represents your commitment to fearless and independent journalism.
Excellent essay. This regime sickens me. The endless stupidity masked as skills and the unmitigated cruelty is boundless. The end cannot be soon enough. When they are removed, there needs to be an accounting of everything they have done and consequences for their actions.
Depressingly accurate post. Proves the lie of american exceptionalism. The rot runs deep. I still marvel at how fast our highly touted “checks and balances” evaporated. It took less than a month. It turns out that the republican party is nothing more than a syndicate designed to funnel money to the rich at the expense of the rest of us. While I am optimistic that trump’s malignant reign will end, the damage he does will not be repaired in my lifetime. To an old man like me that is terribly disheartening.