‘Trump is now doing their bidding’: Journalists say they know why trafficker got pardon

President Donald Trump has been hammered over his recent pardon of a convicted Honduran drug trafficker, with the president being pressed for an explanation as his administration escalates military pressure on Venezuela over alleged narcotics trafficking. But on Sunday, two journalists said they’ve uncovered the real reason behind the move.

On Friday, Trump said he plans to pardon Juan Orlando Hernández, former president of Honduras and convicted drug trafficker who, according to court testimony, planned to “stuff the drugs right up the noses of the gringos.”

The move comes amid Trump declaring Venezuela’s air space to be closed, ongoing strikes on suspected Venezuelan drug-carrying sea vessels, and the deployment of an aircraft carrier strike group to Venezuela’s coast – all with the purported aim of combating drug trafficking.

While Republican lawmakers have struggled to reconcile Trump’s war on drugs with his pardoning of a major drug trafficker, journalist Pedro Gonzalez said recently that he believes he’s figured out the reason.

“There’s a 90% chance Trump wants to pardon Juan Orlando Hernández, the former president of Honduras, who was convicted for his role in a major drug trafficking enterprise, because he is connected to people like Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen and the rest of the tech bro morons,” wrote Chronicles Magazine correspondent Gonzalez in a recent social media post on X.

Thiel and Andreessen – two billionaire tech industry giants that hold major influence over the Trump administration – are both strong backers of Honduran Zones for Employment and Economic Development, or ZEDEs, a proposal for a type of autonomous city or area with its own administrative and political system operating on libertarian principles.

Hernández was a supporter and promoter ZEDEs, which Gonzalez – tying the two topics together – suspects is the primary reason for Trump’s unprecedented and poorly timed pardon of the convicted drug trafficker.

“Let’s be very clear: the narco dictator Trump is pardoning was beloved by the crypto world for creating lawless, sovereign zones for tech utopias organized around crypto,” wrote journalist Ryan Grim in a social media post on X. “The current [government] moved to shut them down. The crypto class fought back and Trump is now doing their bidding.”