Free Republic

President Trump has officially pardoned former Honduran President, Juan Orlando Hernández, who US officials said was at the center of one of the largest and most violent drug-trafficking conspiracies in the world. A White House official not authorized to speak on the record confirmed the pardon was granted and the Federal Bureau of Prisons confirmed his release on Monday.

Though charged in 2023, Colombian national Michael Nunez Daza was only extradited to the U.S. earlier this year. The Justice Department this week announced Colombian national Michael "Luky" Nunez Daza, the leader of a transnational drug money laundering operation, has been sentenced to 60 months in prison, as part of the Trump administration’s Operation Take Back America.Nunez Daza's sentence follows him pleading guilty in August to one count of money laundering conspiracy in the U.S. District Court Southern District of Florida, in which he also was sentenced. The department, in announcing the sentence Wednesday, said that it was part...

Juan Orlando Hernández was accused of receiving millions in bribes and partnering with cocaine traffickers. He was convicted in Manhattan in 2024 and sentenced to 45 years in prison.President Trump announced on Friday afternoon that he would grant “a Full and Complete Pardon” to a former president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández, who, as the center of a sweeping drug case, was found guilty by an American jury last year of conspiring to import cocaine into the United States.The news came as a shock not only to Hondurans, but also to the authorities in the United States who had built...

Honduras still has a long way to go to dismantle the “narco-state” that grew under ex-president Juan Orlando Hernandez, jailed this week for smuggling a deluge of cocaine into the United States, experts said. Hernandez, 55, spent years in positions of power cozying up to kingpins from some of Latin America’s most notorious cartels, which placed proxies in state institutions while he pocketed millions of dollars in drug money. Extradited to the United States upon leaving office in 2022, Hernandez was sentenced this week to 45 years in jail for his crimes after prosecutors said he had turned his country...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris will travel to Honduras next week to attend the inauguration of President-elect Xiomara Castro, the Central American country’s first female president. Castro, the leftist opposition party candidate, won out over the country’s ruling party in November. She will be inaugurated Jan. 27. She is the former first lady and her husband, José Manuel Zelaya was ousted by the army in a coup in 2009. She rode a wave of popular discontent with 12 years of National Party governance, which peaked in former President Juan Orlando Hernández’s second term.

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — Honduras extradited former President Juan Orlando Hernández to the United States on Thursday to face drug trafficking and weapons charges in a dramatic reversal for a leader once touted by U.S. authorities as a key ally in the war on the drugs.Just three months after leaving office, a handcuffed Hernández boarded an airplane with agents from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration bound for the United States, where he faces charges in the Southern District of New York. U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said Hernandez "abused his position as President of Honduras from 2014 through 2022 to operate...

EXCLUSIVE: Can J.D. Vance Help Save the Catholic Church?One Catholic vice president has all but destroyed the Church, now it’s time for another Catholic vice president to save it.A little over 10 years ago, Vice President Joe Biden became the point man to solve the crisis of thousands upon thousands of parentless children illegally entering America along its Southern Border. Over the spring and summer of 2014, over 60,000 unaccompanied minors—some as young as four—came across the Mexican border. Most of them were boys, 13 to 17. There were girls too. It was the cartels who brought them. The crimes...

Honduras hopes to relocate its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem before the end of the year, putting an end to its policy of neutrality - a move likely to further anger the Palestinians. "I have just talked to Prime Minister Netanyahu to strengthen our strategic alliance, we spoke to arrange the opening of the embassies in Tegucigalpa and Jerusalem, respectively," Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez posted on Twitter on Sunday. "We hope to take this historic step before the end of the year, as long as the pandemic allows it." Netanyahu said the intention was to open and inaugurate...