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Floor Speech

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Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, Juan Orlando Hernandez is the former President of Honduras, a country I lived in when I worked with Jesuit missionaries in 1980 and 1981. In a landmark criminal prosecution, he was convicted by a jury in an American Federal court of a massive conspiracy to traffic more than 400 tons of cocaine into the United States while he was President of this very poor country.

Trial testimony included a witness who quoted Hernandez saying that he wanted to ``shove drugs right up the noses of the gringos and they're never even going to know it.''

The case against Hernandez began when Donald Trump's Department of Justice prosecuted his brother Tony in 2019. During that trial and the subsequent trial of the former Honduran President in 2024, evidence showed that President Hernandez led a conspiracy to distribute cocaine in the United States, engaged in serious firearms offenses, and collected millions of dollars in bribes from some of the most dangerous criminals in the world, including Joaquin ``El Chapo'' Guzman of the Sinaloa Cartel. These actions coincided with a spike in violent crime in Honduras, rendering it, for a time, the most dangerous nation on Earth, forcing many Hondurans to leave their country, some coming to the United States.

The jury that heard the 3-week-long case against the disgraced former President convicted him on multiple offenses. He was sentenced to 45 years in prison.

Last Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, President Trump announced that he would pardon this notorious narcotrafficking kingpin after just 1 year of serving his 45-year sentence in a Federal penitentiary in West Virginia. Hernandez was released from prison yesterday.

The unconscionable Hernandez pardon followed another Trump pardon of another notorious narcotrafficker. On January 21, 2025, the day after President Trump's inauguration, he pardoned Ross Ulbricht. Ulbricht was convicted in a Federal court after a 4-week jury trial in 2015 of seven serious charges stemming from his operation of a criminal enterprise known as Silk Road. Silk Road, for those not familiar, was an underground online marketplace where drug dealers and other criminals conducted more than $200 million in illegal drug trade and other unlawful activities. Ulbricht was sentenced to life in prison by an American jury.

President Trump is claiming to be taking action to stop the flow of narcotics into the United States. Yet these two outrageous pardons show that he is willing to excuse and free the worst narcotraffickers in the world. How does this protect Americans from the flow of narcotics entering our country?

As someone who knows this region very well because of my time spent living there and my subsequent work in this body as chairman and ranking member of the America subcommittee of Senate Foreign Relations, I can tell you that the decision with respect to ex-President Hernandez will severely tarnish our reputation with our regional friends and allies. Pardoning him sends a message of impunity to those involved in drug trafficking, violent crime, and corruption, which are often clear causes of irregular migration to the United States.

Why pardon a crook who successfully ``shoved'' 400 tons of cocaine right up the ``noses of the gringos''? Why pardon a criminal who established the largest underground illegal drug market in the world? How come President Trump is willing to ignore the American juries who looked at the overwhelming evidence against these narcotraffickers and convicted them?

It is hard to see any reason for these pardons except that Hernandez and Ulbricht are megarich. Their bank accounts are stuffed with millions from illegal activities, which gives them the means and the motive to pump large sums of money into downtown DC to get out of jail.

It is true that a President has expansive pardon authorities. But it is also true that American politicians have been successfully prosecuted for selling pardons. I can't say for sure what is going on here, but the pardon of Hernandez is so bizarre, so counter to the President's stated priorities, that it is difficult for me to fathom any reason why this would happen, other than that someone in the administration was benefiting from it. None of it makes any logical sense.

I hope that our justice system is up to the task of finding the real story behind these pardons, especially since President Trump has a track record of pardoning those who have contributed to him.

Drug kingpins who become rich by profiting off the addictions of everyday Americans shouldn't be allowed to get away scot-free, and Federal officials who facilitate the pardon of these individuals have to be held to account.

Now, the pardon of disgraced former President Hernandez and Russ Ulbricht also raises serious questions about the Trump administration's ongoing war against boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific and the threatened war against Venezuela. The President and his Secretary of Defense claim that these actions, taken without congressional authorization, are designed to stop narcotics flows into the United States.

Is that the real story?

Even before we get to the question of what is motivating the President to kill unknown civilians on boats and threaten to start a costly war of choice with Venezuela, the serious legal questions about these military actions continue to multiply. The U.S. military began to strike boats in the Caribbean and Pacific on September 2. So far, the United States has engaged in more than 20 known strikes, killing at least 83 people. The first strike happened on a boat in the Caribbean on September 2, based on public reporting.

We now know--we now know--that the initial strike killed most on board, but two survivors were left clinging to wreckage in the water. The U.S. Defense Department rules about war make plain that it is illegal to kill wounded survivors under these circumstances. International law commands the same. Those surviving cannot be wantonly slaughtered. Yet acting pursuant to an alleged order from the Secretary of Defense to ``kill everybody,'' U.S. Special Forces returned to kill the two survivors and hid the fact from Congress and the American public for more than 2 months until enterprising journalists broke the story last week.

On September 10, I led a letter with 25 Senate colleagues directly to the President asking basic questions about the military strikes. We saw no evidence that those on board the boats were combatants or narcotraffickers. We asked for the legal rationale justifying such military action without congressional approval. We inquired why the military was striking boats to kill all on board without interdicting the traffic and using the arrest of the civilians and the seizure of drugs to build criminal cases against drug kingpins. We have not yet received sufficient answers to these basic questions.

The Armed Services Committee held a single classified briefing with administration officials on October 1. As a member of the committee, I attended the briefing. I am not allowed to discuss the facts that I learned in that briefing, but I can say the following: The briefing did not provide us with the legal rationale justifying the strikes. The briefers did not provide us with concrete information about the identity of the individuals killed or the groups targeted with the strikes. The briefers would provide no information about the policy for determining when boats would be attacked rather than interdicted.

Eventually, after weeks and weeks of pressure, the administration finally allowed Senators to read in the SCIF a classified legal rationale it prepared to justify these military actions. By the time Senators--charged with overseeing military operations and providing the budget for national defense--were allowed to review the legal rationale, the strikes had been underway for nearly 2 months.

I reviewed the legal rationale, but because the administration continues to call it classified, I am not allowed to disclose its contents. But I can say the following: The legal rationale is weak. It misinterprets and misuses historical materials regarding the Constitution's allocation of war powers. Its analysis of the domestic law allowing Presidential action is flimsy and would essentially repeal the careful language used in the Constitution and further clarified in the War Powers Act vesting Congress, the article I branch, with the power to initiate war. And its analysis of international law justifying these military strikes is, frankly, embarrassing.

I can also say this. Nothing in the rationale that Senators can read in a classified setting would allow any military action against the nation of Venezuela. The dangerous nature of the administration's legal rationale and strategy are magnified by a series of events that have happened in the last 3 months. Before the strikes even began, public reporting has it that the senior Judge Advocate General, the chief legal officer in SOUTHCOM, raised serious concerns about the legality of these strikes in August.

On October 1, when the Department of Defense briefed the Senate Armed Services Committee about these strikes, they neglected to bring any uniformed officers or personnel from SOUTHCOM to the briefing. This fact was an immediate red flag and tipoff that there was deep division within the ranks about the legality of this current military operation.

On October 16, the military struck a vessel and recovered two survivors. The survivors were then returned to their homes in Colombia and Ecuador and released.

Wait a minute. Wait a minute. If they were narcotraffickers, why weren't they arrested and prosecuted? If they weren't narcotraffickers, was a mistake made? Were mistakes made in the other strikes? Were they innocent of wrongdoing? Was the case against them so flimsy that it wouldn't stand up in a court and that is why they were not arrested but instead released in their home countries?

The administration's refusal to share any information about who has been killed, paired with the lack of prosecution of these two individuals, raises serious concerns over exactly who is being killed and why.

In mid-October, SOUTHCOM Commander, Admiral Holsey, announced his premature retirement from the military. A posting to be head of SOUTHCOM would normally go for 3 years. Admiral Holsey was confirmed less than a year ago, and he announced he was prematurely retiring at the peak of his career--a three-star admiral being given command of this important COCOM. Reporting suggests that the retirement followed tense argument between Admiral Holsey, Secretary Hegseth, and Chairman Dan Caine over the legality of these military strikes.

At around the same time, the Pentagon announced that the operational responsibility for the military strikes was being transferred from SOUTHCOM--where their chief legal officer and apparently their Commander had raised questions about the legality of killing civilians on open seas--the responsibility was being transferred from SOUTHCOM to the Special Operations Command. My read of this shift, together with the other evidence about the JAG opinion in SOUTHCOM and the premature retirement of the SOUTHCOM Commander, is that it signifies a deep concern within the Pentagon leadership over the legality of the ongoing military action.

On November 11, we learned that one of our closest allies, the United Kingdom, was restricting traditional information-sharing with the United States in the SOUTHCOM area due to its concerns about the legality of the U.S. military actions. The UK has fought alongside us in Iraq, Afghanistan, and all over the world, but they are not participating in intelligence-sharing on this particular American military mission.

Just last week, we learned that the first strike left survivors who were then killed on orders from Secretary Hegseth. The United States has, in the past, prosecuted such actions as war crimes, beginning with the Nuremberg trials and heading forward into the current era.

Over the weekend, President Trump announced that he was closing Venezuelan airspace. Where is his authority to close the airspace over a sovereign nation? Did the Pentagon even know that he would announce such a policy via his social media account? Do we even know whether the airspace has been closed or whether any flights are still occurring?

Most recently--most recently--our Secretary of Defense, who likes to cosplay by giving himself the fake title ``Secretary of War,'' posted an image on Twitter of Franklin the turtle firing missiles at narcoterrorists.

Pete Hegseth's social media account:

For your Christmas wish list. . . . Franklin Targets Narco Terrorists.

This is the Secretary of Defense, folks, of the greatest Nation on Earth, and to him, this thing is just a big joke.

Think about that. America's Secretary of Defense has enough time on his hands that he and his minions get to come up with cartoon memes to make light of the fact that the United States is killing people in international waters. He is spending his time and energy thinking about cartoons rather than keeping us safe.

I just have to ask this. I was intrigued at this particular detail. There is a great Biblical phrase that says, ``From the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks.'' So something that you are feeling inside tends to come outside of your mouth even if it is somewhat unintentional.

Why Franklin? I mean, if you are going to do a cartoon--like, Franklin is a Canadian cartoon. Why not Scooby-Doo or Peanuts or, you know, Snoopy? I mean, why Franklin? Of all the cartoon figures that Pete Hegseth could spend time imaging into an AI-generated cartoon making fun of killing narco--why Franklin?

Well, I don't know the answer to that. Secretary Hegseth does. But I have an intuition. Check and see the name of the Special Forces commander whom Secretary Hegseth is now trying to blame for the second strike killing struggling civilians in international waters.

This is no way to wage war. This is no way to wage war.

Orders of dubious legality offered by civilian leaders of questionable judgment are leading to dozens of anonymous deaths, division within the U.S. military, and tension with our allies. The administration's actions are risking the careers of officers and troops, many having served for decades with great distinction, who face the life-and-death question of whether to obey a superior or follow the law--follow the clear law.

All this is occurring with an administration hell-bent on hiding from Congress and the American public the actual facts, strategy, and legal justification for its actions. America is not supposed to be at war based on a Presidential say-so.

Abraham Lincoln said it well when he was a Member of Congress in 1848:

The reason why the Constitution has given the war-making power to Congress was because Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars. This our [constitutional] convention understood to be the most oppressive of all kingly oppressions and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us.

No one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us.

It is past time for Congress to reclaim its role in the decision on whether to initiate war. The Framers in 1787 wouldn't allow George Washington to make these decisions on his own. We shouldn't allow our current President--a man perfectly comfortable pardoning a convicted criminal who boasted about shoving drugs up the gringos' noses--to make such a decision on his own.

It is time for Congress to reassert the role that was handed to us in a sacred way in the Constitution in 1787 and exercise oversight over this mushrooming military operation in the Americas.

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