On November 28, 2025, President Donald Trump announced on social media that he intended to issue a "full and complete pardon" to former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández. President Trump formally granted the pardon on December 1, 2025, and Hernández was released from prison on the same day, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Hernández had been sentenced to 45 years in prison in June 2024 after a U.S. federal jury convicted him of conspiring to import cocaine into the United States and related firearms offenses. According to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Hernández and his co-conspirators trafficked more than 400 tons of U.S.-bound cocaine through Honduras between 2004 and 2022. In his pardon announcement, President Trump asserted that Hernández had been treated "unfairly."
Some Members of Congress have questioned and criticized the Hernández pardon. Resolutions condemning the pardon have been introduced in both houses (H.Res. 929 and S.Res. 530). In addition to considering those measures, Congress could use its oversight authority to examine the Administration's justification for the pardon and the potential implications for U.S. security interests and relations with Honduras, among other issues.