WASHINGTON — Juan Orlando Hernández, the former president of Honduras who was serving a 45-year federal sentence for trafficking hundreds of tons of cocaine into the United States, walked out of a federal penitentiary in West Virginia a free man Saturday night — the result of a presidential pardon signed hours earlier by Donald J. Trump.

The decision has set off a political firestorm across Latin America, stunned U.S. law-enforcement officials and fractured segments of Mr. Trump’s own political base. It is one of the most controversial acts of clemency issued by a modern American president.

Mr. Hernández, 57, was convicted last year on charges that included cocaine conspiracy, use of machine guns and destructive devices, and running what prosecutors described as a “narco-state” from the highest office of Honduras. Federal prosecutors proved that he facilitated the trafficking of an estimated 400 tons of cocaine — a staggering amount, enough to supply the U.S. market for years.

He was expected to spend the rest of his life in prison.

Instead, he stepped into the cold December air in West Virginia and left with his lawyers — the result of what a senior Trump aide described as “a last-minute presidential judgment call.”

A Decision That Shocked Even Allies

Even among Mr. Trump’s supporters, the reaction was fierce. The self-styled champion of “law and order,” who has repeatedly vowed military action against foreign drug cartels and blamed the fentanyl crisis on democratic governance, is now facing accusations of hypocrisy from within his own movement.

“This is not coming from Democrats,” said one longtime Trump supporter in Ohio who lost a brother to a cocaine overdose. “This is coming from us. You don’t free a man who sent 400 tons of poison into our country.”

For days, Mr. Trump has defended the pardon on Truth Social, dismissing critics as “RINOs” — Republicans in name only — and insisting Mr. Hernández had been treated “very harshly and unfairly.”

But legal experts say the case was one of the most thoroughly documented narcotics prosecutions in recent decades.

“This was not a borderline conviction,” said a former senior DEA official who worked on the Hernández investigation. “The evidence was overwhelming. The sentencing was appropriate. There was nothing ambiguous about this case.”

Roger Stone’s Role Draws Scrutiny

The pardon has also revived long-standing concerns about how Mr. Trump uses his clemency powers — concerns intensified by the involvement of Roger J. Stone, the longtime political operative who was himself pardoned by Mr. Trump after being convicted of obstructing Congress.

According to two people familiar with the matter, Mr. Stone lobbied aggressively for Mr. Hernández’s release, sending a personal letter to Mr. Trump and speaking with him directly in recent weeks.

The White House has not denied Mr. Stone’s involvement.

“Roger Stone has become a private clemency broker,” said a former White House lawyer who served under Mr. Trump. “It is the very definition of the swamp the president once promised to drain.”

A Narco-State at the Highest Level

Mr. Hernández served as Honduras’s president from 2014 to 2022. During that time, the U.S. Justice Department said he collected millions of dollars in bribes from drug cartels, deployed the Honduran military to guarantee safe passage for cocaine shipments and used state institutions as instruments of the drug trade.

Prosecutors described him as “a cartel boss in a presidential sash.”

Testimony from traffickers, financial documents and intercepted communications formed the backbone of a case prosecutors called “one of the most significant narcotics prosecutions in modern U.S. history.”

“This was corruption at a nearly unimaginable scale,” said a former federal prosecutor who worked on the case. “It undermined Honduras and harmed the United States. This was not simply drug trafficking — it was state-sponsored drug trafficking.”

A Regional Fallout

Across Latin America, reactions were swift and incredulous.

Honduras, still grappling with the legacy of Mr. Hernández’s rule, issued a statement expressing “deep concern” over the pardon. Officials in Mexico and Colombia privately questioned the message it sends about American resolve in the drug war.

“It tells the world that drug policy in the United States is not about justice but about political convenience,” said a former Colombian security minister. “If someone like Hernández can be pardoned, anyone can.”

A Fracture Inside Trump’s Base

Perhaps most striking is the reaction among Mr. Trump’s most loyal followers.

For years, Mr. Trump has framed the drug crisis as a central threat to American families, calling for harsh penalties and promising to “destroy the cartels.” But freeing a man responsible for one of the largest cocaine conduits in U.S. history has created a rare break in the MAGA coalition.

“It’s a contradiction they can’t reconcile,” said Dr. Marisol Kent, a political scientist at Yale University. “The pardon undermines the core law-and-order message that has defined Trumpism.”

Some supporters are attempting to justify the decision, insisting Mr. Hernández was targeted by the Biden administration — even though the investigation began during Mr. Trump’s first term and the evidence against the former Honduran president spanned more than a decade.

Others are refusing to defend the decision at all.

“This is not who we voted for,” said a Trump voter in Missouri. “You don’t release a drug lord and claim to be tough on drugs.”

A Pattern of Transactional Pardons

The Hernández pardon fits into a broader pattern that legal scholars say reflects a troubling use of presidential power:

• Clemency tied to political loyalty.
• Pardons pushed by allies who themselves received pardons.
• Clemency for the well-connected rather than the wrongfully convicted.

“This is not mercy,” said Susan Markwell, a professor of constitutional law at Georgetown University. “This is transactional power, and it erodes public confidence in the rule of law.”

A Moment That May Linger

Whether the backlash will persist remains unclear. Mr. Trump has weathered political storms before by moving quickly to the next controversy. But advisers say the Hernández decision is uniquely visceral for voters who have lost family members to addiction or who live in communities ravaged by cocaine and fentanyl.

“This one cuts deep,” a senior Republican strategist said. “It’s not abstract. It’s human.”

For now, Mr. Hernández is free. The 45-year sentence is gone. The $8 million fine is likely void. And the extraordinary case that once defined the U.S. government’s aggressive posture against foreign drug traffickers has been upended by a single signature.

“This is not draining the swamp,” a former DEA agent said. “This is pardoning the swamp.”

As one political analyst put it:
“America just witnessed the clearest contradiction of Trump’s ‘tough on crime’ promise — and even his base can’t ignore it.”