Trump pardon questioned after Venezuela attack

Trump administration faces renewed questions over recent pardon of former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez This comes after the United States captured Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro on Saturday and charged him with crimes related to drug trafficking.

Hernandez was convicted in 2024 of conspiring with drug traffickers and using his position in government to help hundreds of tons of cocaine enter the United States. he was prisoner Up to 45 years in prison.

President Donald Trump pardoned Hernandez in November. to mail He said the Truth Social account was “treated very harshly and unfairly.”

Maduro was charged with narco-terrorism conspiracy along with four other charges: cocaine importation conspiracy; possession of machine guns and destructive devices; and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices.

On Sunday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio was pressed over the apparent contradiction of Hernandez’s pardon, as the United States has leveled similar accusations against Maduro, another president of a South American country with ties to the drug trade.

“I’m not preparing the pardon file, I’m not for or against it, I haven’t reviewed the file, so I can’t talk to you about the dynamics that led to the president making the decision he did,” Rubio said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

“He reviewed the file, examined the arguments in it, and felt that the former president of Honduras was treated very unfairly by the previous administration,” Rubio said. he said.

“Whether you agree with this decision or not, it doesn’t mean you leave Maduro where he is,” Rubio said.

“The answer to that is, whether you have a problem or not, don’t leave out someone who has been indicted and hasn’t yet faced American justice,” Rubio said.

Trump’s pardon of Hernandez was already under intense scrutiny before Maduro’s ouster. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a statement: “The hypocrisy underlying this decision is particularly glaring.”

“The same president recently pardoned former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who was convicted in a U.S. court on serious drug trafficking charges, including conspiring with narcotics traffickers while in office,” Warner said. “But the administration argues that similar allegations justify the use of military force against another sovereign nation. You cannot credibly argue that drug trafficking charges warrant invasion in one case but declare amnesty in the other.”

At the press conference held after Maduro’s capture on Saturday, Trump was pressured about the pardon. He said Hernandez was “very unfairly persecuted.”

“He was treated the same way the Biden administration treated a man named Trump,” Trump said, referring to his own criminal investigations for allegedly hoarding classified documents and trying to overturn the 2020 election after leaving office after his first term as president.

Trump also cited his support for Honduras’ president-elect Nasry Asfura as another reason for the pardon.

“He’s also a member of the winning guy’s party, so obviously people liked what I did,” Trump said. “One of the reasons was that the party in power felt very strongly that this man was treated very badly.”

Trump also pointed to Rubio and other members of his national security team when explaining why he issued the pardon.

“I went to a lot of people who stood behind me and they felt like that man was being persecuted and treated very badly,” he said.