Where's WalJOH?
Who is protecting former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, and why?
“Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández in 2021 and the Waldorf Astoria facade in New York. Photo illustration by ProPublica. Photos by Andy Buchanan - Pool/Getty Images, Plexi Images/GHI/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images.”
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In Honduras, the former president is known by his initials, JOH.
In 2024 in federal court in New York, he was “tried and convicted … and sentenced to 45 years in prison for taking bribes and allowing traffickers to export more than 400 tons of cocaine to the U.S.”1
At the time, the Justice Department recommended a LIFE sentence, a $10 million dollar fine, and forfeiture of over $15 million dollars. Why?
DOJ Sentencing Submission: “For more than a decade, the defendant abused his political power to operate Honduras—a country of roughly ten million people—as a narco-state. The defendant’s rise was fueled by millions of dollars in drug money from some of the largest and most violent cocaine traffickers in the world. Once he gained control of Honduras, he protected those drugs and his partners with the full power of the state, channeling his country’s law enforcement, military, and financial resources to protect his co-conspirators and help them grow their international drug distribution network. In the process, the defendant facilitated the importation of at least 400 tons of cocaine into the United States, causing untold damage in this country and leaving unimaginable suffering in its wake. The defendant engaged in this egregious conduct while publicly posing as an ally of the United States in its efforts to combat the importation of narcotics that destroy countless lives in this country. But behind closed doors, the defendant protected the very traffickers he vowed to pursue. As a direct result of the defendant’s crimes, Honduras became one of the world’s largest transshipment points for United States-bound cocaine and one of the most violent places in the world. Those conditions contributed to corruption across Honduras, caused poverty and fear, and fueled a mass exodus of individuals fleeing Honduras, many bound for the United States. For more than a decade, the defendant presided over this vicious cycle of corruption and drug trafficking that destabilized Honduras and damaged countless American and Honduran lives. He did this by protecting his drug trafficking co-conspirators from prosecution and extradition, giving safe harbor to violent, massive cocaine traffickers as they used Honduras as a springboard for pumping cocaine into the United States, protected by machineguns and destructive devices, while also destroying their own community. … Accordingly, … the Government respectfully submits that the Court should impose a sentence of life imprisonment, order the defendant to forfeit $15,525,000, and pay a $10 million fine.”
JOH served less than four years in federal prison. Trump pardoned him on Dec. 1, 2025.
Normally, when a foreign criminal is extradicted to the USA, if the criminal is convicted, the criminal is usually deported back home after serving his sentence.
But after Trump pardoned JOH, the feds put him up in the Waldorf-Astoria hotel, and from there he … disappeared?
Reporter Keri Blakinger at ProPublica broke the WalDOH story on Feb. 18, 2026 here. I recommend reading the whole thing.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but Trump’s pardon does not erase, cancel or nullify the facts found at trial, to wit, that JOH was and is a drug runner and gun runner, either of which make him deportable (or, in immigration-speak, removable.)
So where is he? Who is protecting JOH, and why? Why hasn’t he been deported?
Immigration lawyers will know that JOH was likely brought into the US for trial via “parole.” Now that he’s been pardoned and released, has his parole been extended? On whose orders? Why? For how long?
And if you believe there was no quid pro quo, and that Trump doesn’t benefit somehow from this pardon, I own a bridge in Brooklyn that I am willing to sell to you for a low, low price.
Trump’s corruption is legendary (see this NYT Op-Ed, gift link), so the WalJOH case may be small potatoes in the big scheme of things, but it still chaps me. It should chap all of us.
That’s all for now. THANK YOU! to all subscribers, new, free and paid.
Comments and questions welcome…especially if I’ve gotten something wrong above.
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I like to think they are waiting for that DHS luxury jet so they can deport him in style.