Christmas Podcast ｜ Trump's Final Christmas Present
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Summary
Juan Orlando Hernandez was once touted as a key ally in the war on drugs by the U.S. government. He served as president of Honduras from 2001 to 2014. He was the first elected president of his country in over 30 years and served as the country s first black president. However, he was arrested and sentenced to 45 years in prison for drug trafficking and weapons possession. On December 25th, 2018, President Trump pardoned him.
Transcript
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Hello folks and Merry Christmas. I don't know what day this will be going out but I hope you're
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having a very jolly time at the merriest time of the year and I thought to cap off a year where
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many people have been frustrated and annoyed at me for being critical of many of Trump's decisions
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in his second term as president. I thought I'd cap it all off by being again very critical of Donald
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Trump because Donald Trump you know he's a guy he says he's a Christian he says that he believes in
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Judeo-Christian values whatever those are and he decided to get the holiday season started early
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by giving the ex-president of Honduras a very welcome surprise present and that is a pardon
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from the 45-year prison sentence that he had been that he had been given by a federal U.S. court
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and let's introduce you to this story because this is one that kind of may have flown under the radar
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for a lot of people. I don't think at the time at the beginning of December when this happened we
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actually covered it so it needs a little bit of context for anybody unaware and let me introduce
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you on that to the former president Juan Orlando Hernandez once touted as the by the U.S. authorities
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as a key ally in the war on drugs because of course many of those Central American states are hotbeds for
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drug activities and trafficking from from drug countries to the U.S. they're often used to ferry
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these drugs from one place to another so that they can get to your local neighborhood or if it's
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cocaine or crack and things like that most likely the ghetto as well but federal prosecutors changed
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their tune and said that the political leader ran his Central American nation as a narco state
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collecting millions of dollars from violent cartels to fuel his rise to power so that is quite a switch
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over from one to the other so this guy was supposedly helping U.S. authorities in preventing drugs from
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coming to the U.S. but upon further investigation it seems that he was actually at the head
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or certainly a massive middleman involved in one of these operations and the question becomes
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why the sudden change what was there something to do with perhaps he wasn't useful to these people
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anymore was this a stitch up was this just something that was put forward because we can see that this
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article came in 2024 was this a case of the Biden administration unfairly prosecuting one of Trump's
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key Central American allies while Biden was still in office as one last ditch attempt to get one over
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on Trump well let's find out so two years prior to this article in February of 2022 he was arrested
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and extradited to the U.S. and went on trial in Manhattan on drug trafficking and weapons charges
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because they're not going to try they they decided not to try him in Honduras because frankly the
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country was considered too corrupt to allow for an ex-president to be tried there Hernandez um it says
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here in the article you know is being tried in the U.S. rather than his native country underscores
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Honduras's institutional weakness for Hondurans it signifies how weak our democracy is in terms of
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the separation of powers politicians are not subject to any control according to a Honduran political
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analyst and former three-term congressman Raul Pineda Alvarado who was actually in congress for
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Hernandez's national party which is considered a center-right or right-wing party a key ally for the
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Trump administration at the time and currently a party that Trump right now wants to support again
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as elections are coming up so that they can have that key ally back in position uh during Trump's
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second term the millions of dollars in drug money that began flowing to Hernandez started around 2004
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so over 20 years ago now in turn powered his rise from a congressman representing his rural home province
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in western Honduras to president of the national congress and then two consecutive presidential terms
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in 2014 to 2022 and that's according to the prosecutors they're saying the whole thing was uh the result of
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drug money being funneled to him in exchange for bribes that propped up his political aspirations
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U.S. prosecutors say drug traffickers were allowed to operate in the country with near impunity receiving
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information to evade authorities and even law enforcement escorts for their shipments and that's a big part of
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this story as well the Honduras national police force was supposedly involved in these drug trafficking
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operations something that the actual former police chief of the national police force has gone to prison
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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
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crazy so far I've not actually given you a chance to speak thus far no no no I mean I'm just uh
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taking in the information taking it in actually but it's sort of the pattern that you see in Latin
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America the the U.S. allied with the right-wing gangsters in Colombia against the left-wing gangsters
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um at some point they were helping uh Escobar launder money and then they targeted him
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in Mexico you see the the presidency is completely in the pocket of of the drug cartels so it seems that
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there's just too much money going around as a result of the drug business and there's not enough
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politicians who are willing to to do well it was under this guy's watch that the notorious El Chapo
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was extradited and um charged convicted uh for all of his involvement in the drugs trade and running a
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large section of the drugs trade as a as a narco gangster type and it seems that a lot of that was
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cooperation with the U.S. to hand in certain drugs uh people certain people involved in the drugs
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trade whilst at the same time protecting the people who had been giving him backhanders
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yes for years so how much money did he get so supposedly he solicited 1.6 million dollars from
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a drug trafficker to support his run and those of other politicians in his conservative political party
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his brother also received a 1 million dollar campaign donation from notorious Sinaloa boss
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Joaquin El Chapo Guzman right so it seems that he sold him down the river eventually after that
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on the promise that the cartel's drug shipments would find safe passage through Honduras if
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Hernandez was elected federal prosecutors spent years working the way up through Honduran drug
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trafficking organizations before reaching the person many believe was at the very pinnacle that
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being the ex-president he was arrested at his home in February 2022 extradited the U.S. attorney at
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the time General Merrick Garland said that Hernandez abused his position to present as president to
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operate the country as a narco state now of course just sort of just sorry to interrupt but just briefly
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on this uh 1.6 million dollars is chump change for these guys yeah I would imagine that there's a lot
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more but they're going with what they can prove well was handed over even then even then that suggests
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that you know he wasn't actually a decision maker because the amount of money that's in the drug
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business is in the tens of billions of dollars um and for any of these cartels each of these cartels
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is probably what three five billion dollars every year of turnover I mean a lot of these cartels actively
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like de facto run these countries anyway so Sinaloa is one of the biggest of these cartels and the one
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of the most powerful so I would be shocked if they were making less than 10 20 billion dollars a year
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and so one million dollars to a president for a campaign that's chump change either they're not
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either there's a lot more that's suspected that they haven't been able to prove or this guy isn't
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some kingpin he's just like every other politician who figured out that the only way that he can stay
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alive is to make a deal with cartels and then for reasons unknown he was sacrificed at the end of his
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term so there is this dimension to it that's you know when you look at the amounts of money this is
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nothing it's the same that they're doing with Zelensky in Ukraine uh they've accused one of his guys of
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having siphoned off maybe a hundred million dollars or something like that out of tens of billions of
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dollars that have gone to Ukraine at least a third I would argue probably 60 percent disappeared into
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corruption so they are choosing their targets politically and what you're seeing here is
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sort of the tip of the iceberg of the money flow oh yeah I would imagine as well I do agree with you
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that this guy does not seem to be the kingpin he does not seem to be the decision maker at the head
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of this operation he is some guy who wanted power or wanted his slice of power knew how he was able to
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get that you have to cooperate with these cartels if you want to be able to get near to that unless
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you're going to try and do an El Salvador and try and use power responsibly to shut the whole thing
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down this guy clearly didn't so he took the money where he could get it and in likelihood as well
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there's probably other money that they've just not been able to prove but I would imagine a lot of it
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also came in kind because there were other reports that his assets had been seized from his house
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he had lots of cars and lots of other very expensive merchandise so a lot of it might have just been like
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oh Mr. Hernandez we've look at this lovely Ferrari this new car yeah this lovely Ferrari is just
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showing up on your drive isn't that so nice for you so I imagine a lot of it's like that because
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you are right even when I was reading through this I thought like for the amount of money that's going
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to be flowing through 1.5 million dollars or 1.6 million dollars for this guy 1 million dollars for
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his brother to risk the kind of life sentences that have been handed out as a result of all of this
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that's not that much yeah that's not that much but of course Honduras sorry Hernandez said that he
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was innocent he maintains his innocence he said the allegations are revenge from drug traffickers that
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he had extradited to the US the US also say that I mean there was collaboration there but this was
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mainly the result of US investigations it's not like he was the one who decided to launch independent
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Honduran like investigations into it it sounds like some of these guys were just coming to the
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end of their sell-by date yes and all of a sudden it was like more it was better for him to help hand
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them in and it probably worked better for some of the people he was collaborating with than it was for
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him to try and stand by them Hernandez faced federal charges including drug trafficking blah blah blah
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so uh if we go back to some of the reports from before he was arrested as well we can get a little
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bit more context here so this was court documents that were filed before they were able to have him
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extradited and this is back in 2021 uh so this was uh there was a close working relationship between
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a man called Giovanni Fuentes Ramirez and the court documents were talking about a close working
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relationship between this Fuentes and Hernandez it alleged that Hernandez accepted bribes while
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running for the presidency in 2013 exchange offered military support and the use of the country's armed
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forces as security for drug running operations quote in approximately 2013 and 14 CC4 that being
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Hernandez promised to protect Fuentes from arrest and extradition promised to help the defendant
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transport cocaine with the assistance of Honduras's armed forces said he wanted to use the defendant's
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laboratory because of its proximity to a key shipping port directed the defendant to work with Tony
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Hernandez his brother with respect to drug trafficking activities and stated that he was going to quote
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shove the drugs right up the noses of the gringos end quote so a key ally for the Trump administration
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during the first term right here and I'm not alleging in saying that that Trump was aware that this
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particular activity was going on at the time I'm just saying that this guy was clearly two-faced
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taking these people for a ride prosecutors write the allegations of corruption illustrate a broader
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criminal plan of the defendant and others to use drug trafficking to help assert power and control
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in Honduras according to the document a witness also heard Hernandez allegedly admit to embezzling
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united states aid through ngos and stealing from Honduras's social security fund this is just classic
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corruption yeah right here obviously if you're going to be corrupt in a central or south american country
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obviously you've just got to take us aid and misuse it obviously you've got to take slush funds from
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social security money that's just that's that's just like part and parcel of the job really that's the one
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of the first things that you have to do in the first week because fundamentally these political systems
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they're not suited to these people like having elections and democracy in a part of the world
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like latin america with all of the poverty all of the inequality all of the different identity groups
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etc etc it's going to become obviously a process of purchasing votes and who can help you the most
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effectively with buying votes well criminal gangs because they terrify the neighborhoods that they're in
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they terrify the areas that they're that they operate in and they have big slush funds uh so you end up
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with the criminals having the ability to put people into the political system because it's run as a
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democracy so these institutions aren't suitable for countries that are like that what's happened to all
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of latin america is that they've tried to be american and to mimic the united states when culturally
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geographically geographically civilizationly it doesn't suit them the history of europe is the
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history of monarchy all through you had some exceptions like the venetian republic but even then
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you know it was an oligarchy in charge so having this kind of system operating in this kind of country
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is insane it's like putting democracy in iraq it just doesn't work this was a bad idea for to begin with
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yeah i mean even within western countries like you're saying there's questions on whether democracy
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can ever escape the massive charges of corruption and um and oligarchy that end up coming part and
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parcel with it but especially for these people and that's what it is the political system needs to be
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suited to the people exactly and these are people obviously central and south america have a massive
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variety of different ethnicities within it we say hispanic but that's such a massive umbrella term
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but you can get white hispanics who are very clearly descended mainly from portuguese and spanish
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like settlers and colonists and such but a lot of these people are still the pretty much direct
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descendants of those who 600 years ago were still performing massive blood ritual sacrifices
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and that's where you get this kind of cartel mentality you think how can these people be so brutal
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when you see the cartel videos well it's because this is actually pretty normal behavior for them
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going back centuries yes they adapted a version of catholicism which ends up having a kind of saint
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lady of death yes in it so they adapted all they adopted all of these practices and adapted them
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to fit their already uh well-established cultural norms exactly and so you can't just fit an american
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style republican democracy over the it needs a paternalistic monarchic system with a responsible
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aristocracy it can't work under a democracy that's the and and this is what we see happening and then
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you can go to the government website on uh from 2024 after his conviction that confirmed he was
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sentenced to 45 years that gives again some more context in this particularly regarding the police's
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involvement hernandez and his co-conspirators abused honduran institutions including the honduran
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national police and honduran military to protect and grow their conspiracy among other things members
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of the conspiracy used heavily armed honduran national police officers to protect their cocaine loads
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as they transited through honduras towards the united states for eventual distribution members of the
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conspiracy also turned to violence and murder to protect and grow their drug trafficking enterprise
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attacking and murdering rival traffickers and those who threatened their grip on the honduran cocaine
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trade and this means that over the course of his time in office more than 400 tons of cocaine were
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siphoned over to the u.s at the time and again a lot of this is taken from witness statements in october of
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2019 it says here tony hernandez the ex-president's brother was uh convicted after trial in october 2019
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and sentenced to life in prison so that's his brother and that's where a lot of this evidence
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seems to come from in the course of that trial a lot of the witnesses who were coming forward also said
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well actually it wasn't just tony it was his brother as well the president of honduras at the time was
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still involved in all of this sort of stuff and that really uh got this investigation going and as well
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as that you've got the conviction of his brother for life in prison that's pretty damning that he
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was also a politician alleged and confirmed in trial to be accepting these bribes involved in all
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of this that's going to be difficult enough to be able to say that you had no idea oh i just had no
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idea that my brother was involved in all of this but then at the same time obviously you've got the
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police involvement here in uh in 2021 juan carlos bonilla valadere's also known as el tigre the
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former chief of the honduran national police pleaded guilty to his participation in the cocaine
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importation conspiracy and was scheduled to be sentenced on august 1st i think after this he was
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sentenced also to potentially life in prison as well so you also you've got his brother and then you've
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got the head of the police who are alleged to have been giving armed transport protection to these
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people as they were trafficking cocaine both of these people go down for life one of them including
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the police officer pleads guilty to it as the president of this country it becomes increasingly
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difficult to say that you had no idea that any of this was going on when at the same time the people
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coming forward in those trials are saying well no this all goes back to the president as well yes that
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becomes very difficult and it and and then i decided are there any of these articles that talk about
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what was actually used in evidence to convict hernandez in 2024 well in the bbc article here
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they mentioned that he had tried to um he tried to get a motion for a retrial because his lawyers
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argued that the trial was tainted by incorrect testimony from a law enforcement agent who said cocaine
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trafficking went up in honduras during the ex-president's time in office well whether it
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went up or down if he's still involved in this huge conspiracy doesn't matter which is what the judge
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said u.s district judge kevin castell found the error immaterial to the charge of conspiring with drug
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traffickers hernandez's conviction was based on testimony over the course of a three-week trial
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of numerous witnesses whose testimony was corroborated in part by phone records and a recovered drug
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gladger so there was the witness testimony and there was also documentation to back all of this
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up as well as well as all of the extra money that he probably would have been shown to have had
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and these seized assets where it's where you have to ask yourself as the president how could you afford
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all of these nice fancy cars and other merchandise but after all of this it seems pretty open and
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shut right yes like how can you say obviously this kind of thing is very common in south in south and
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central america this is what we kind of expect unless the u.s were to go to absolute war with
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the cartels or unless they were to go out of their way to support people like bukele in el salvador who
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is going to go to war on their behalf with these drugs traffickers with these murderers with these huge
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narco gangs unless they're going to do that you expect this but donald trump decided you know what
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it's coming up to the christmas season i'm feeling merry this box has stopped working all of a sudden
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he decided you know let's throw out a pardon that's that's very kind very very strange behavior given
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that donald trump has said ever since 2015 that he wanted to go to war with these people that he was
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going to go to war with the cartels going to build a wall so that we can keep these people out because
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they're bringing murderers and rapists and drug dealers and thieves and such and one of these guys
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who was probably not the head like you say i mean the cartels would be the head of it but certainly
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heavily involved in facilitating all of this you know what i'm feeling very modern take on christian
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charity isn't it it certainly is i don't remember anything about forgiving drug dealers in the bible
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uh but it says here that he announced the pardon on 28th of november in a truth social post of course
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he did writing that according to many people that i greatly respect hernandez had been unfairly treated
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by prosecutors really that's a strong case to try and make yes at the white house briefing on the 1st of
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december press secretary carolyn levitt who is probably you know well up to date with everything to do with
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this case argued that charges against hernandez were tainted by a corrupt quote over prosecution
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under president biden what the hell is an over prosecution what does that mean the people around
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him got life in prison and he only got 45 years so if anything it sounds like comparatively especially
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given that he was the president that he got lighter treatment interesting asked if the pardon undermined
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the u.s's presidential campaign against narco terrorists on the american continent leave it said the aim was to
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correct the wrongs of the justice department under biden so the argument that has been put forward here
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is that this was some kind of because of the fact that this guy was the head of a trump-aligned
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right-wing party on in honduras that this was some kind of um
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uh payback payback by the biden administration to punish trump's allies from his first term
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this is despite the fact that a lot of the evidence that came out that started the state department's
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investigations into this guy were kicked off in 2019 under the first administration
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by the state department when they were prosecuting state department or justice department oh sorry justice department
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right i mean look when they get the ledgers and the accounts usually this stuff is pretty definitive
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um i wouldn't put it past the biden people to prosecute somebody unfairly but the chief of police
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confessed and pleaded guilty and that's about as bad as it gets really and so clearly this guy was
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involved the question is does trump think that he can use people like that as puppets as so long as
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they pinky promise never to deal drugs again i don't believe that's a realistic proposition to begin
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with so i don't understand what's happening i want to give the guy the benefit of a doubt
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but i just well to me it's it smacks of the same kind of thing that we saw earlier on this year where
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despite the fact that epstein was originally charged in trump's first term and all of the
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issues that were with the epstein case like him uh taking himself out in the in prison and such were
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done under trump's first term that earlier on this year with the epstein files that trump was trying
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to say the whole thing was a democrat conspiracy that was the line for about a month or two
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it smacks that trump will go with his gut on these things and hand out favors to people that he's
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amenable to yes or try and try and hide things that he doesn't want from the public and the first line
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that he will always go to is that this was a democrat conspiracy this was biden and ad biden admin
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going overzealous on something that is the first line because he's hoping the maga base is going to
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just swallow it because that they're already because during the biden administration they were
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kind of not programmed but they were prepared to accept that everything was biden's fault which is
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fair when he's the one who's in office making all of these bad decisions i mean i mean even even on that
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point trump never managed to gain control of the institutions and we saw it yesterday i believe with
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the resignation of dan bongino deputy head of the fbi that you know cash patel and dan bongino could
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not control the fbi he appointed his people and they still couldn't control the institutions so to
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be fair to trump this is a possibility but when the chief of police pleads guilty and they find your
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ledgers and all of that stuff it's a bit more conclusive if your brother is guilty if the police of chief
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pleads guilty and they find ledgers and other corroborating evidence and you seem to have a
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lot of extra merchandise at your home that you really shouldn't have been able to afford questions
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are asked and the most obvious answer is normally the right one in a situation like this interestingly
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enough the outlet that was uh reporting this originally axios reported that roger stone the lobbyist and
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long-time trump advisor had told the u.s presidents that a pardon for hernandez would energize the
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national party ahead of the honduran election so it seems to be advisors around trump as well like
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roger stone whispering in his ear saying this would be a great idea if during our second term we can get
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this party back into power or we can help them get back into power through this pardon kind of wiping
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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