Shameful Hernandez Pardon

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, I rise today with deep concern at the President's outrageous and shameful pardon of Juan Orlando Hernandez, a man an American jury convicted of trafficking tons of cocaine into the United States and of corrupting his own government in the process.

I saw this firsthand when I brought a bipartisan delegation to Honduras when he was President. We refused to meet with him because he is/was a thug.

This is not a minor case. This is not a close call. This was a decisive conviction for crimes that have devastated American families and fueled violence and instability abroad. Yet, President Trump chose to use one of the most powerful powers of the Presidency to wipe it all out.

This is so hypocritical as he is bombing small boats that he describes as full of drugs coming to the United States. Perhaps they are, and that is a different thing. However, if he is doing that, why would he pardon a thug?

Hernandez once boasted at a meeting of narcotraffickers that ``together they were going to shove the drugs right up the noses of the gringos.'' What message does pardoning this criminal send to parents who have lost children to narcotics, to law enforcement officers risking everything to stop the flow of deadly drugs?

This disgraceful pardon should be met with bipartisan condemnation as an affront to our values, our safety, our rule of law, and our democracy.

Those who do not join in that condemnation are either pro-crime or do not care. It is another reminder the American people must be vigilant.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source