'Very Orwellian': Ex-federal prosecutor calls out Trump hypocrisy

One former assistant U.S. attorney is arguing that President Donald Trump's pardon of a convicted drug trafficker doesn't jibe with his stated reason for blowing up boats in the Caribbean Sea.

During a Monday segment on MS NOW, Sean Murphy — who was a Department of Justice (DOJ) prosecutor during former President Joe Biden's administration — told host Katy Tur that he was unable to make sense of Trump's recent pardon of former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, and his ongoing strikes on boats his administration alleges are trafficking drugs to the United States.

"It's very Orwellian, even the way that he says both, 'I'm going to go after drug traffickers and address this drug problem, but then pardon someone who is literally at the top of these drug trafficking activities,'" Murphy said. "He's killing people who are the lowest-level offenders without any evidence that they even know what's on their boat ... But here he's issuing this pardon."

Murphy also scoffed at Trump's claim on Air Force One that he pardoned Hernández because he was supposedly railroaded by the Biden administration. He also reminded Tur and her viewers that the most effective way to stop drug trafficking was to go after the heads of each respective drug cartel rather than low-level offenders, comparing the latter to removing the tail from a lizard that can be easily regrown.

"If a lizard is in adangerous position, it'sevolved to the point where ifits tail gets trapped, the tailwill come off and it cancontinue on and keep living," he said. "... It'smuch more effective to stopdrug any criminal enterprise. No matter what it is, you haveto stop it from the top."

"Quite frankly, I have to say myheart goes out to theprosecutors, the lineprosecutors who spent years oftheir lives, the victims ofthis drug kingpin, it to watchit all go up in smoke like thisis heartbreaking," he continued. "I worked onthe January 6th cases for fouryears, and I know a little bitof what it's like to watchyears of your life beobliterated with the stroke ofa sharpie."

Watch the segment below:

- YouTubewww.youtube.com