The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - Christmas Podcast ｜ Trump's Final Christmas Present

00:00:00.000 Hello folks and Merry Christmas. I don't know what day this will be going out but I hope you're

00:00:17.080 having a very jolly time at the merriest time of the year and I thought to cap off a year where

00:00:23.980 many people have been frustrated and annoyed at me for being critical of many of Trump's decisions

00:00:30.060 in his second term as president. I thought I'd cap it all off by being again very critical of Donald

00:00:37.400 Trump because Donald Trump you know he's a guy he says he's a Christian he says that he believes in

00:00:43.940 Judeo-Christian values whatever those are and he decided to get the holiday season started early

00:00:50.320 by giving the ex-president of Honduras a very welcome surprise present and that is a pardon

00:00:58.840 from the 45-year prison sentence that he had been that he had been given by a federal U.S. court

00:01:08.180 and let's introduce you to this story because this is one that kind of may have flown under the radar

00:01:13.400 for a lot of people. I don't think at the time at the beginning of December when this happened we

00:01:17.480 actually covered it so it needs a little bit of context for anybody unaware and let me introduce

00:01:23.460 you on that to the former president Juan Orlando Hernandez once touted as the by the U.S. authorities

00:01:33.560 as a key ally in the war on drugs because of course many of those Central American states are hotbeds for

00:01:39.960 drug activities and trafficking from from drug countries to the U.S. they're often used to ferry

00:01:47.140 these drugs from one place to another so that they can get to your local neighborhood or if it's

00:01:53.040 cocaine or crack and things like that most likely the ghetto as well but federal prosecutors changed

00:01:59.900 their tune and said that the political leader ran his Central American nation as a narco state

00:02:05.340 collecting millions of dollars from violent cartels to fuel his rise to power so that is quite a switch

00:02:11.540 over from one to the other so this guy was supposedly helping U.S. authorities in preventing drugs from

00:02:19.800 coming to the U.S. but upon further investigation it seems that he was actually at the head

00:02:23.720 or certainly a massive middleman involved in one of these operations and the question becomes

00:02:29.460 why the sudden change what was there something to do with perhaps he wasn't useful to these people

00:02:35.780 anymore was this a stitch up was this just something that was put forward because we can see that this

00:02:40.820 article came in 2024 was this a case of the Biden administration unfairly prosecuting one of Trump's

00:02:48.140 key Central American allies while Biden was still in office as one last ditch attempt to get one over

00:02:54.860 on Trump well let's find out so two years prior to this article in February of 2022 he was arrested

00:03:02.520 and extradited to the U.S. and went on trial in Manhattan on drug trafficking and weapons charges

00:03:09.380 because they're not going to try they they decided not to try him in Honduras because frankly the

00:03:14.520 country was considered too corrupt to allow for an ex-president to be tried there Hernandez um it says

00:03:21.340 here in the article you know is being tried in the U.S. rather than his native country underscores

00:03:24.920 Honduras's institutional weakness for Hondurans it signifies how weak our democracy is in terms of

00:03:32.200 the separation of powers politicians are not subject to any control according to a Honduran political

00:03:38.160 analyst and former three-term congressman Raul Pineda Alvarado who was actually in congress for

00:03:46.140 Hernandez's national party which is considered a center-right or right-wing party a key ally for the

00:03:53.500 Trump administration at the time and currently a party that Trump right now wants to support again

00:04:00.440 as elections are coming up so that they can have that key ally back in position uh during Trump's

00:04:08.020 second term the millions of dollars in drug money that began flowing to Hernandez started around 2004

00:04:14.440 so over 20 years ago now in turn powered his rise from a congressman representing his rural home province

00:04:21.220 in western Honduras to president of the national congress and then two consecutive presidential terms

00:04:25.840 in 2014 to 2022 and that's according to the prosecutors they're saying the whole thing was uh the result of

00:04:33.160 drug money being funneled to him in exchange for bribes that propped up his political aspirations

00:04:37.900 U.S. prosecutors say drug traffickers were allowed to operate in the country with near impunity receiving

00:04:43.860 information to evade authorities and even law enforcement escorts for their shipments and that's a big part of

00:04:49.840 this story as well the Honduras national police force was supposedly involved in these drug trafficking

00:04:56.660 operations something that the actual former police chief of the national police force has gone to prison

00:05:04.080 for his name uh or his denominator El Tigre uh I think he's been given a life sentence it's it's all pretty

00:05:13.700 crazy so far I've not actually given you a chance to speak thus far no no no I mean I'm just uh

00:05:18.960 taking in the information taking it in actually but it's sort of the pattern that you see in Latin

00:05:23.660 America the the U.S. allied with the right-wing gangsters in Colombia against the left-wing gangsters

00:05:30.280 um at some point they were helping uh Escobar launder money and then they targeted him

00:05:36.260 in Mexico you see the the presidency is completely in the pocket of of the drug cartels so it seems that

00:05:43.740 there's just too much money going around as a result of the drug business and there's not enough

00:05:52.100 politicians who are willing to to do well it was under this guy's watch that the notorious El Chapo

00:05:58.420 was extradited and um charged convicted uh for all of his involvement in the drugs trade and running a

00:06:06.040 large section of the drugs trade as a as a narco gangster type and it seems that a lot of that was

00:06:12.060 cooperation with the U.S. to hand in certain drugs uh people certain people involved in the drugs

00:06:19.320 trade whilst at the same time protecting the people who had been giving him backhanders

00:06:24.040 yes for years so how much money did he get so supposedly he solicited 1.6 million dollars from

00:06:30.840 a drug trafficker to support his run and those of other politicians in his conservative political party

00:06:35.780 his brother also received a 1 million dollar campaign donation from notorious Sinaloa boss

00:06:42.980 Joaquin El Chapo Guzman right so it seems that he sold him down the river eventually after that

00:06:48.980 on the promise that the cartel's drug shipments would find safe passage through Honduras if

00:06:53.860 Hernandez was elected federal prosecutors spent years working the way up through Honduran drug

00:06:58.540 trafficking organizations before reaching the person many believe was at the very pinnacle that

00:07:02.520 being the ex-president he was arrested at his home in February 2022 extradited the U.S. attorney at

00:07:08.800 the time General Merrick Garland said that Hernandez abused his position to present as president to

00:07:14.080 operate the country as a narco state now of course just sort of just sorry to interrupt but just briefly

00:07:20.200 on this uh 1.6 million dollars is chump change for these guys yeah I would imagine that there's a lot

00:07:27.060 more but they're going with what they can prove well was handed over even then even then that suggests

00:07:34.180 that you know he wasn't actually a decision maker because the amount of money that's in the drug

00:07:41.720 business is in the tens of billions of dollars um and for any of these cartels each of these cartels

00:07:50.640 is probably what three five billion dollars every year of turnover I mean a lot of these cartels actively 0.88

00:07:56.300 like de facto run these countries anyway so Sinaloa is one of the biggest of these cartels and the one

00:08:04.820 of the most powerful so I would be shocked if they were making less than 10 20 billion dollars a year

00:08:11.200 and so one million dollars to a president for a campaign that's chump change either they're not

00:08:18.780 either there's a lot more that's suspected that they haven't been able to prove or this guy isn't

00:08:26.180 some kingpin he's just like every other politician who figured out that the only way that he can stay

00:08:30.920 alive is to make a deal with cartels and then for reasons unknown he was sacrificed at the end of his

00:08:38.940 term so there is this dimension to it that's you know when you look at the amounts of money this is

00:08:45.960 nothing it's the same that they're doing with Zelensky in Ukraine uh they've accused one of his guys of

00:08:50.820 having siphoned off maybe a hundred million dollars or something like that out of tens of billions of

00:08:56.920 dollars that have gone to Ukraine at least a third I would argue probably 60 percent disappeared into

00:09:04.040 corruption so they are choosing their targets politically and what you're seeing here is

00:09:10.540 sort of the tip of the iceberg of the money flow oh yeah I would imagine as well I do agree with you

00:09:17.960 that this guy does not seem to be the kingpin he does not seem to be the decision maker at the head

00:09:22.740 of this operation he is some guy who wanted power or wanted his slice of power knew how he was able to

00:09:30.700 get that you have to cooperate with these cartels if you want to be able to get near to that unless

00:09:35.140 you're going to try and do an El Salvador and try and use power responsibly to shut the whole thing 0.97

00:09:40.000 down this guy clearly didn't so he took the money where he could get it and in likelihood as well

00:09:44.740 there's probably other money that they've just not been able to prove but I would imagine a lot of it

00:09:48.340 also came in kind because there were other reports that his assets had been seized from his house

00:09:53.140 he had lots of cars and lots of other very expensive merchandise so a lot of it might have just been like

00:09:59.980 oh Mr. Hernandez we've look at this lovely Ferrari this new car yeah this lovely Ferrari is just

00:10:07.680 showing up on your drive isn't that so nice for you so I imagine a lot of it's like that because

00:10:12.660 you are right even when I was reading through this I thought like for the amount of money that's going

00:10:16.460 to be flowing through 1.5 million dollars or 1.6 million dollars for this guy 1 million dollars for

00:10:22.140 his brother to risk the kind of life sentences that have been handed out as a result of all of this

00:10:28.440 that's not that much yeah that's not that much but of course Honduras sorry Hernandez said that he

00:10:35.640 was innocent he maintains his innocence he said the allegations are revenge from drug traffickers that

00:10:41.040 he had extradited to the US the US also say that I mean there was collaboration there but this was

00:10:46.760 mainly the result of US investigations it's not like he was the one who decided to launch independent

00:10:53.300 Honduran like investigations into it it sounds like some of these guys were just coming to the

00:10:58.420 end of their sell-by date yes and all of a sudden it was like more it was better for him to help hand

00:11:05.140 them in and it probably worked better for some of the people he was collaborating with than it was for

00:11:10.280 him to try and stand by them Hernandez faced federal charges including drug trafficking blah blah blah

00:11:15.460 so uh if we go back to some of the reports from before he was arrested as well we can get a little

00:11:21.340 bit more context here so this was court documents that were filed before they were able to have him

00:11:26.420 extradited and this is back in 2021 uh so this was uh there was a close working relationship between

00:11:35.060 a man called Giovanni Fuentes Ramirez and the court documents were talking about a close working

00:11:42.500 relationship between this Fuentes and Hernandez it alleged that Hernandez accepted bribes while

00:11:47.460 running for the presidency in 2013 exchange offered military support and the use of the country's armed

00:11:53.240 forces as security for drug running operations quote in approximately 2013 and 14 CC4 that being

00:12:01.060 Hernandez promised to protect Fuentes from arrest and extradition promised to help the defendant

00:12:05.780 transport cocaine with the assistance of Honduras's armed forces said he wanted to use the defendant's

00:12:11.340 laboratory because of its proximity to a key shipping port directed the defendant to work with Tony

00:12:16.860 Hernandez his brother with respect to drug trafficking activities and stated that he was going to quote

00:12:22.560 shove the drugs right up the noses of the gringos end quote so a key ally for the Trump administration

00:12:30.300 during the first term right here and I'm not alleging in saying that that Trump was aware that this

00:12:36.180 particular activity was going on at the time I'm just saying that this guy was clearly two-faced

00:12:42.520 taking these people for a ride prosecutors write the allegations of corruption illustrate a broader

00:12:47.700 criminal plan of the defendant and others to use drug trafficking to help assert power and control

00:12:53.780 in Honduras according to the document a witness also heard Hernandez allegedly admit to embezzling

00:12:59.680 united states aid through ngos and stealing from Honduras's social security fund this is just classic

00:13:06.640 corruption yeah right here obviously if you're going to be corrupt in a central or south american country

00:13:12.020 obviously you've just got to take us aid and misuse it obviously you've got to take slush funds from

00:13:18.500 social security money that's just that's that's just like part and parcel of the job really that's the one

00:13:24.620 of the first things that you have to do in the first week because fundamentally these political systems

00:13:29.280 they're not suited to these people like having elections and democracy in a part of the world

00:13:35.480 like latin america with all of the poverty all of the inequality all of the different identity groups

00:13:41.180 etc etc it's going to become obviously a process of purchasing votes and who can help you the most

00:13:50.620 effectively with buying votes well criminal gangs because they terrify the neighborhoods that they're in

00:13:55.980 they terrify the areas that they're that they operate in and they have big slush funds uh so you end up

00:14:03.920 with the criminals having the ability to put people into the political system because it's run as a

00:14:10.160 democracy so these institutions aren't suitable for countries that are like that what's happened to all 1.00

00:14:17.540 of latin america is that they've tried to be american and to mimic the united states when culturally

00:14:25.000 geographically geographically civilizationly it doesn't suit them the history of europe is the

00:14:31.140 history of monarchy all through you had some exceptions like the venetian republic but even then

00:14:36.480 you know it was an oligarchy in charge so having this kind of system operating in this kind of country

00:14:43.780 is insane it's like putting democracy in iraq it just doesn't work this was a bad idea for to begin with

00:14:49.420 yeah i mean even within western countries like you're saying there's questions on whether democracy

00:14:55.060 can ever escape the massive charges of corruption and um and oligarchy that end up coming part and

00:15:01.960 parcel with it but especially for these people and that's what it is the political system needs to be

00:15:07.500 suited to the people exactly and these are people obviously central and south america have a massive

00:15:13.700 variety of different ethnicities within it we say hispanic but that's such a massive umbrella term

00:15:19.640 but you can get white hispanics who are very clearly descended mainly from portuguese and spanish

00:15:24.480 like settlers and colonists and such but a lot of these people are still the pretty much direct

00:15:30.100 descendants of those who 600 years ago were still performing massive blood ritual sacrifices 0.63

00:15:35.040 and that's where you get this kind of cartel mentality you think how can these people be so brutal

00:15:41.060 when you see the cartel videos well it's because this is actually pretty normal behavior for them

00:15:46.960 going back centuries yes they adapted a version of catholicism which ends up having a kind of saint

00:15:54.160 lady of death yes in it so they adapted all they adopted all of these practices and adapted them

00:16:00.080 to fit their already uh well-established cultural norms exactly and so you can't just fit an american

00:16:06.400 style republican democracy over the it needs a paternalistic monarchic system with a responsible

00:16:11.860 aristocracy it can't work under a democracy that's the and and this is what we see happening and then

00:16:18.300 you can go to the government website on uh from 2024 after his conviction that confirmed he was

00:16:25.980 sentenced to 45 years that gives again some more context in this particularly regarding the police's

00:16:31.660 involvement hernandez and his co-conspirators abused honduran institutions including the honduran

00:16:37.000 national police and honduran military to protect and grow their conspiracy among other things members

00:16:42.980 of the conspiracy used heavily armed honduran national police officers to protect their cocaine loads

00:16:49.080 as they transited through honduras towards the united states for eventual distribution members of the

00:16:54.300 conspiracy also turned to violence and murder to protect and grow their drug trafficking enterprise

00:16:59.780 attacking and murdering rival traffickers and those who threatened their grip on the honduran cocaine

00:17:05.080 trade and this means that over the course of his time in office more than 400 tons of cocaine were

00:17:10.620 siphoned over to the u.s at the time and again a lot of this is taken from witness statements in october of

00:17:17.160 2019 it says here tony hernandez the ex-president's brother was uh convicted after trial in october 2019

00:17:24.860 and sentenced to life in prison so that's his brother and that's where a lot of this evidence

00:17:30.160 seems to come from in the course of that trial a lot of the witnesses who were coming forward also said

00:17:35.740 well actually it wasn't just tony it was his brother as well the president of honduras at the time was

00:17:41.760 still involved in all of this sort of stuff and that really uh got this investigation going and as well

00:17:48.160 as that you've got the conviction of his brother for life in prison that's pretty damning that he

00:17:53.620 was also a politician alleged and confirmed in trial to be accepting these bribes involved in all

00:18:00.040 of this that's going to be difficult enough to be able to say that you had no idea oh i just had no

00:18:04.640 idea that my brother was involved in all of this but then at the same time obviously you've got the

00:18:09.420 police involvement here in uh in 2021 juan carlos bonilla valadere's also known as el tigre the

00:18:17.420 former chief of the honduran national police pleaded guilty to his participation in the cocaine

00:18:23.120 importation conspiracy and was scheduled to be sentenced on august 1st i think after this he was

00:18:28.640 sentenced also to potentially life in prison as well so you also you've got his brother and then you've

00:18:35.020 got the head of the police who are alleged to have been giving armed transport protection to these

00:18:42.700 people as they were trafficking cocaine both of these people go down for life one of them including

00:18:47.920 the police officer pleads guilty to it as the president of this country it becomes increasingly

00:18:54.240 difficult to say that you had no idea that any of this was going on when at the same time the people

00:18:58.880 coming forward in those trials are saying well no this all goes back to the president as well yes that

00:19:04.860 becomes very difficult and it and and then i decided are there any of these articles that talk about

00:19:09.760 what was actually used in evidence to convict hernandez in 2024 well in the bbc article here

00:19:17.660 they mentioned that he had tried to um he tried to get a motion for a retrial because his lawyers

00:19:26.100 argued that the trial was tainted by incorrect testimony from a law enforcement agent who said cocaine

00:19:31.320 trafficking went up in honduras during the ex-president's time in office well whether it

00:19:36.040 went up or down if he's still involved in this huge conspiracy doesn't matter which is what the judge

00:19:41.320 said u.s district judge kevin castell found the error immaterial to the charge of conspiring with drug

00:19:46.880 traffickers hernandez's conviction was based on testimony over the course of a three-week trial

00:19:51.980 of numerous witnesses whose testimony was corroborated in part by phone records and a recovered drug

00:19:58.600 gladger so there was the witness testimony and there was also documentation to back all of this

00:20:03.680 up as well as well as all of the extra money that he probably would have been shown to have had

00:20:08.120 and these seized assets where it's where you have to ask yourself as the president how could you afford

00:20:13.660 all of these nice fancy cars and other merchandise but after all of this it seems pretty open and

00:20:19.620 shut right yes like how can you say obviously this kind of thing is very common in south in south and

00:20:25.400 central america this is what we kind of expect unless the u.s were to go to absolute war with

00:20:32.340 the cartels or unless they were to go out of their way to support people like bukele in el salvador who

00:20:40.060 is going to go to war on their behalf with these drugs traffickers with these murderers with these huge

00:20:46.060 narco gangs unless they're going to do that you expect this but donald trump decided you know what

00:20:53.520 it's coming up to the christmas season i'm feeling merry this box has stopped working all of a sudden

00:20:59.900 he decided you know let's throw out a pardon that's that's very kind very very strange behavior given

00:21:09.680 that donald trump has said ever since 2015 that he wanted to go to war with these people that he was

00:21:14.960 going to go to war with the cartels going to build a wall so that we can keep these people out because

00:21:19.640 they're bringing murderers and rapists and drug dealers and thieves and such and one of these guys

00:21:25.640 who was probably not the head like you say i mean the cartels would be the head of it but certainly

00:21:30.920 heavily involved in facilitating all of this you know what i'm feeling very modern take on christian

00:21:38.840 charity isn't it it certainly is i don't remember anything about forgiving drug dealers in the bible

00:21:44.180 uh but it says here that he announced the pardon on 28th of november in a truth social post of course

00:21:49.640 he did writing that according to many people that i greatly respect hernandez had been unfairly treated

00:21:56.340 by prosecutors really that's a strong case to try and make yes at the white house briefing on the 1st of

00:22:04.180 december press secretary carolyn levitt who is probably you know well up to date with everything to do with

00:22:09.700 this case argued that charges against hernandez were tainted by a corrupt quote over prosecution

00:22:16.180 under president biden what the hell is an over prosecution what does that mean the people around

00:22:23.400 him got life in prison and he only got 45 years so if anything it sounds like comparatively especially

00:22:28.800 given that he was the president that he got lighter treatment interesting asked if the pardon undermined

00:22:34.780 the u.s's presidential campaign against narco terrorists on the american continent leave it said the aim was to

00:22:41.040 correct the wrongs of the justice department under biden so the argument that has been put forward here

00:22:46.760 is that this was some kind of because of the fact that this guy was the head of a trump-aligned

00:22:51.580 right-wing party on in honduras that this was some kind of um

00:22:57.000 uh payback payback by the biden administration to punish trump's allies from his first term

00:23:04.940 this is despite the fact that a lot of the evidence that came out that started the state department's

00:23:10.660 investigations into this guy were kicked off in 2019 under the first administration

00:23:17.020 by the state department when they were prosecuting state department or justice department oh sorry justice department

00:23:22.900 right i mean look when they get the ledgers and the accounts usually this stuff is pretty definitive

00:23:31.740 um i wouldn't put it past the biden people to prosecute somebody unfairly but the chief of police

00:23:40.280 confessed and pleaded guilty and that's about as bad as it gets really and so clearly this guy was

00:23:48.760 involved the question is does trump think that he can use people like that as puppets as so long as

00:23:54.760 they pinky promise never to deal drugs again i don't believe that's a realistic proposition to begin

00:24:01.740 with so i don't understand what's happening i want to give the guy the benefit of a doubt

00:24:06.920 but i just well to me it's it smacks of the same kind of thing that we saw earlier on this year where

00:24:14.980 despite the fact that epstein was originally charged in trump's first term and all of the

00:24:21.760 issues that were with the epstein case like him uh taking himself out in the in prison and such were

00:24:30.000 done under trump's first term that earlier on this year with the epstein files that trump was trying

00:24:36.300 to say the whole thing was a democrat conspiracy that was the line for about a month or two

00:24:40.720 it smacks that trump will go with his gut on these things and hand out favors to people that he's

00:24:49.000 amenable to yes or try and try and hide things that he doesn't want from the public and the first line

00:24:56.100 that he will always go to is that this was a democrat conspiracy this was biden and ad biden admin

00:25:02.220 going overzealous on something that is the first line because he's hoping the maga base is going to

00:25:07.360 just swallow it because that they're already because during the biden administration they were

00:25:13.880 kind of not programmed but they were prepared to accept that everything was biden's fault which is

00:25:21.420 fair when he's the one who's in office making all of these bad decisions i mean i mean even even on that

00:25:27.120 point trump never managed to gain control of the institutions and we saw it yesterday i believe with

00:25:33.720 the resignation of dan bongino deputy head of the fbi that you know cash patel and dan bongino could

00:25:41.000 not control the fbi he appointed his people and they still couldn't control the institutions so to

00:25:46.220 be fair to trump this is a possibility but when the chief of police pleads guilty and they find your

00:25:52.000 ledgers and all of that stuff it's a bit more conclusive if your brother is guilty if the police of chief

00:25:59.680 pleads guilty and they find ledgers and other corroborating evidence and you seem to have a

00:26:05.760 lot of extra merchandise at your home that you really shouldn't have been able to afford questions

00:26:10.620 are asked and the most obvious answer is normally the right one in a situation like this interestingly

00:26:18.140 enough the outlet that was uh reporting this originally axios reported that roger stone the lobbyist and

00:26:25.900 long-time trump advisor had told the u.s presidents that a pardon for hernandez would energize the

00:26:31.360 national party ahead of the honduran election so it seems to be advisors around trump as well like

00:26:37.820 roger stone whispering in his ear saying this would be a great idea if during our second term we can get

00:26:44.520 this party back into power or we can help them get back into power through this pardon kind of wiping

00:26:50.600 the slate clean of these corruption charges against them then that will allow us to have a key ally in

00:26:56.580 central america so there are potentially broader geopolitical aims and goals being pursued here as

00:27:02.720 well but still domestically which is where trump really should be focusing a lot of his attention on

00:27:08.720 because the base has lost a lot of energy because the midterms next year are looking quite shaky

00:27:15.060 this looks this is a bad look yes this is a very bad look and the the funny thing just to end this

00:27:22.060 off is that uh immediately after this honduras have decided they're going to try and arrest them again

00:27:27.560 anyway i know they're not a particularly incorrupt country obviously uh and this is this probably is

00:27:34.520 political reprisals given the opposing left-wing party currently in power in honduras but it would

00:27:40.640 kind of be funny if they just like released him just so he could walk straight out of one jail cell

00:27:45.620 and into the next one over in honduras although if they are actually going to try and arrest him

00:27:50.360 i would imagine he's probably just going to try and get out of uh get as far away from the country as

00:27:54.500 possible but uh that's that's that one i think it's a very strange tactic um around christmas for

00:28:01.860 trump to start pardoning massively corrupt heads of narco states but you know what

00:28:09.400 tis the season

00:28:10.240 tis the season

00:28:12.320 tis the season

00:28:12.360 tis the season

00:28:12.380 tis

00:28:30.380 tis the season

00:28:34.380 tis the season

00:28:34.420 tis the season

00:28:36.380 tis the season

00:28:38.320 tis the season

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - December 29, 2025

Christmas Podcast ｜ Trump's Final Christmas Present

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