JOH’s Return: The Valiant Hero of Honduras is Welcomed Home

Undaunted, undeterred, unbroken, unwavering in his faith—former President Juan Orlando Hernandez—returned to Honduras on Sunday and received a well-deserved hero’s welcome.

Undaunted, undeterred, unbroken, unwavering in his faith—former President Juan Orlando Hernandez—returned to Honduras on Sunday and received a well-deserved hero’s welcome.

Hernandez was reunited with his beloved wife, Ana Garcia, and the rest of his beautiful family for the first time in over four years. He was mobbed by adoring supporters, the faithful conservatives who never believed the fanciful tales spun by narcos hungry to cut deals with overzealous deep state prosecutors who would stop at nothing to put a scalp on their walls for personal advancement.

After returning home to Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernandez is reunited with his wife and daughters.

The story of JOH’s railroading is a sad tale of how communist narcoterrorists, Trump-hating FBI thugs, left-wing State Department ideologues, subversive NGOs soaking up public money, arrogant media propagandists, and overreaching DEA goons cynically conspired to undermine the goal of American sovereignty, bring shame to one of its most effective and diligent public servants, and take a nation to the brink of ruin.

JOH was once praised in a bipartisan manner with Democrats and Republicans alike hailing his unprecedented success in drug interdiction as President. JOH eventually caught the ire of Democrats because he was one of the main proponents of the “Safe Third Country” agreement devised during the first Trump administration to mitigate the planned flood of illegals coming in from the U.S. southern border.

Asylum seekers were re-routed to Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador rather than being dumped into the U.S. where they could flood the system by design. The policy was very successful at keeping illegals from coming into the U.S., but it made JOH a pariah among Democrats who desperately wanted to manufacture a border crisis that they could pin on President Trump.

Far-left LIBRE Party member and advisor to JOH’s successor Xiomara Castro, Gilberto Rios, appeared on TV and admitted a quid pro quo deal that the Biden administration made with the then-incoming Xiomara Castro regime to get JOH’s head on a silver platter. Rios said: “Imagine this offer to be told as Libre, we are going to take Juan Orlando... That’s an offer that anyone says: ‘Yes, Man!’ ... And they delivered, they took Juan Orlando.”

Honduras’ hellish descent into communism began from there. As JOH was hauled off from his home as if he were Hannibal Lecter in front of the cameras, the Honduran people were left to suffer as the Biden deep state performed its victory laps. New President Xiomara Castro proved to be extraordinarily corrupt. She openly conspired with known Venezuelan drug dealers, a move that “surprised” Biden’s U.S. Ambassador to Honduras.

A photo of the crowd of adoring supporters who assembled to greet JOH upon his heroic return to Honduras.

Making matters worse, her brother-in-law, Carlos Zelaya, was caught on video negotiating bribes for drug money to prop up Castro’s political ambitions, where he claimed that Castro’s husband, former President Mel Zelaya, was directly taking bribes from narcotraffickers and murderers. This was more evidence—by a mile—than was presented at the show trial against JOH. In the fall out, Castro announced she would be terminating her country’s extradition treaty with the U.S., presumably to protect her drug-dealing family members and cronies.

As the national elections approached last December, it was Honduras’ last chance to stem the rising tide of narco-leftism. LIBRE Party contender Rixi Moncada, an open communist, and Liberal Party contender Salvador Nasralla, who was the former Vice President under Castro before defecting, challenged National Party (PNH) candidate Tito Asfura. The polls were razor thin until President Donald Trump decided to weigh in.

The man who is standing up for Democracy, and fighting against Maduro, is Tito Asfura, the Presidential Candidate of the National Party. The only real friend of Freedom in Honduras is Tito Asfura. Tito and I can work together to fight the Narcocommunists, and bring needed aid to the people of Honduras,” President Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.

“His chief opponent is Rixi Moncada, who says Fidel Castro is her idol,” Trump added, noting that “the Communists are trying to trick the people by running a third Candidate, Salvador Nasralla,” who President Trump said was “pretending to be an anti-Communist only for the purposes of splitting Asfura’s vote.”

Shortly after issuing his endorsement, President Trump made an announcement that would shake the foundation of Honduran politics and dominate headlines the world over. He was going to pardon JOH. Like myself, President Trump recognized that JOH’s case had all the hallmarks of a deep state railroading. Hernandez was a clear victim of politically-motivated lawfare. President Trump’s clemency for the former Honduran president was both an act of justice and an act of mercy.

JOH addresses a raucous audience at a rally in his honor shortly after returning home.

At the time when President Trump announced the pardon of JOH, it was considered controversial. There was baseless speculation it might have a negative impact on the Honduran election with disgraced grifter and bloated fraud Dick Morris serving as a particularly odious naysayer. But nothing could have been further from the truth. In fact, it was likely the JOH bump that put Asfura over the finish line by the narrowest of margins.

As a result, Honduras joins the renaissance of Latin American countries that are adopting freedom, such as El Salvador, Argentina, Paraguay, Colombia, Chile and many others. And JOH returns home, being able to spend time with his family and continue his life’s work to defend the rule of law and spread free market prosperity among his people. JOH’s story deserves to be told in books and on the silver screen. This is a tale of hope and triumph, and how truth can prevail even when the entire world is seemingly dedicated to its suppression.