{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.kaine.senate.gov/press-releases/kaine-statement-on-trumps-pardoning-of-former-honduran-president-who-brought-over-400-tons-of-cocaine-into-the-united-states", "Kaine Statement on Trump's Pardoning of Former Honduran President who Brought Over 400 Tons of Cocaine into the United States", "2025-11-29", "2025", "2025-11", "Democrat", "Senate", "VA", "Tim Kaine", "K000384", "www.kaine.senate.gov", "kaine", "https://www.kaine.senate.gov/news", "scraper", "WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2013 Today, U.S. Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA), who lived in Honduras in 1980 and 1981 and serves as Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, released the following statement regarding President Donald Trump\u2019s decision to pardon drug kingpin and former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hern\u00e1ndez, who was convicted in the U.S. in 2024 for conspiring to traffic more than 400 tons of cocaine and weapons charges and sentenced to 45 years in prison:\n\n\u201cSince September, President Trump has struck over 20 boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean in a supposed effort to crack down on drug trafficking\u2014ordering the illegal execution of unknown people without evidence or trials and forfeiting the ability to gather valuable intelligence. But he finds it perfectly acceptable to excuse rich guys like Russ Ulbricht, who was sentenced to life in prison after founding the world\u2019s largest online drug marketplace, and now Juan Orlando Hern\u00e1ndez, who allegedly said he wanted to \u2018shove the drugs right up the noses of the gringos by flooding the United States with cocaine\u2019 and was sentenced to 45 years after bringing 400 tons of it into America. It\u2019s the same old story from this Administration: no plans to actually make our communities safer or more prosperous, only ridiculous\u2014and likely corrupt\u2014schemes to reward wealthy criminals. This is a disgusting and incomprehensible decision by Trump, and Americans whose lives have been destroyed by narcotraffickers like Ulbricht and Hern\u00e1ndez deserve better.\u201d\n\nAccording to the U.S. Department of Justice, court documents illustrated that from at least in or about 2004, up to and including in or about 2022, Hern\u00e1ndez was at the center of one of the largest and most violent drug-trafficking conspiracies in the world. During his political career, Hern\u00e1ndez abused his powerful positions and authority in Honduras to facilitate the importation of over 400 tons of cocaine into the U.S. Hern\u00e1ndez\u2019s co-conspirators were armed with machine guns and destructive devices, including AK-47s, AR-15s, and grenade launchers, which they used to protect their massive cocaine loads as they transited across Honduras on their way to the U.S., protect the money they made from the eventual sale of this cocaine, and guard their drug-trafficking territory from rivals.\n\nIn 2017, Trump recognized Hern\u00e1ndez as the winner of a presidential election in Honduras despite widespread allegations of fraud. Hern\u00e1ndez was losing the election until election authorities stopped releasing results and ultimately declared that he won another term. Honduras is due to hold presidential elections on November 30; international observers have raised concerns regarding the potential integrity of the elections after the country\u2019s March 9 primaries were fraught with irregularities.\n\nThe day after Trump was inaugurated in 2025, he pardoned Ulbricht, who was serving life in prison for convictions relating to distributing narcotics and conspiring to launder money tied to his website, Silk Road. Kaine railed against the decision.\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T19:52:45Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.kaine.senate.gov/press-releases/kaine-statement-on-trumps-pardoning-of-former-honduran-president-who-brought-over-400-tons-of-cocaine-into-the-united-states"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.593584194779396, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}