S. RES. 616

On 2026-06-17, Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) delivered a floor speech titled "S. RES. 616" in the Senate.

S. RES. 616

Congressional Record, Volume 172 Issue 102 (Wednesday, June 17, 2026) [Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 102 (Wednesday, June 17, 2026)] [Senate] [Pages S2877-S2878] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [ www.gpo.gov ] S. RES. 616 Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I rise to speak upon a matter that will be brought to the floor for a vote within the next hour or so. The matter is what is called a 502B resolution filed by my colleague Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, and a 502B resolution directs [[Page S2878]] the State Department to issue a human rights report on topics voted upon by the Senate. This particular 502B resolution concerns a most serious human rights and criminal justice matter and one of the worst abuses of the Presidential pardon power in the history of the United States. I applaud my colleague Senator Cortez Masto for leading on this bill. I am a cosponsor of the bill. I was a missionary in Honduras and lived there in 1980 and 1981, and I have a number of friends still there who feel this issue is definitely one that warrants some additional attention by our government. And I thank Senator Cortez Masto. She will be the final speaker on this before it is called up for vote. My colleagues might remember that on March 8, 2024, former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez was convicted of three counts of drug trafficking in a case that was brought in the Southern District of New York, also convicted of weapons conspiracy, and on June 26, 2024, he was sentenced to 45 years in prison. Now, this conviction in March of 2024 followed a long investigatory process. President Hernandez' brother Tony was earlier convicted of serious drug offenses in the United States. That investigation began when Barack Obama was President. Most of the investigation was done during the Presidency of Donald Trump, term one. It continued during the Biden Presidency, and obviously, the conviction was obtained in the last year of the Biden Presidency. The point is, this was a very intense effort by the Department of Justice over both Democratic and Republican administrations to go after serious narcotrafficking. What was he convicted of doing? This former Honduran President was convicted of--while he was President, he was engaged in a conspiracy to import more than 400 tons of cocaine into the United States--400 tons. U.S. prosecutors described Hernandez as a key figure in one of the largest and most dangerous drug trafficking convictions ever prosecuted in the United States court system. This disgraced former President even bragged about how he and his cartel friends--and this was evidence that was introduced against him at trial: We're going to shove the drugs right up the noses of the gringos, and they're never even going to know it. A serious narcotrafficker who abused the public trust of his nation to flood the United States with drugs used to kill Americans. On December 1, 2025, after less than a year, a little bit more than a year service of his 45-year sentence, President Orlando Hernandez, this disgraced drug trafficker was released from Federal prison and given a full and complete pardon by Donald Trump, our President. We have yet to receive any public plausible explanation for the pardon. President Trump said he thought it was a setup job done by the Biden administration, even though much of the investigation was conducted by President Trump's own officials in the Department of Justice in the Southern District of New York. I have spoken about this matter before when the pardon was undertaken. The former President Hernandez is represented by some pretty high-priced folks. There is virtually no explanation for this that makes any sense, except a corrupt one. Someone got money for this pardon. I don't know exactly who, and I am sure it is in an account somewhere that we will never be able to find out who, but there would be no reason to pardon this individual for this serious crime unless there was some corrupt motive behind it. Now, this particular pardon raises serious doubts and questions given that President Trump is currently claiming to be at war against narcotraffickers. We have had much debate in this Chamber about the President's actions to direct the U.S. military to target and bomb boats and kill occupants on those boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific. And at a hearing that we recently had with the Secretary of State, I asked him questions based upon my review of 46 files of the strikes, the first 46 strikes--now over 200 people have been killed in these strikes--and I asked the question why the administration did not demand evidence of the presence of narcotics on the boats that they are bombing. That is not one of the targeting criteria. I am not allowed to describe the targeting criteria because they are classified, but I think I can discuss something that is not one of the targeting criteria. And evidence of narcotics on the boats has never been one of the targeting criteria in the strikes that have now killed more than 200 people. But why would an administration that is bombing boats, even without evidence of narcotics, and claiming it is an effort to stop narcotrafficking--why would that administration pardon this guy--this guy--certainly, one of the most powerful and dangerous narcotraffickers ever convicted in the history of the United States? How does this make any sense? Why is the President and this administration prioritizing Juan Orlando Hernandez over the American people? And this is not the only example of a narcotrafficker or a drug trafficker being pardoned by the President. He pardoned a notorious drug trafficker on the first day of his Presidency. But this is the most egregious one. Granting clemency to this narcotrafficker, after serving only 1 year out of a 45-year sentence, sends a troubling message about justice and accountability and about the fact that there are basically two systems of justice in this country--one for the well-connected, who can hire fancy folks and pay a lot of money to get out of a 45-year sentence, and everybody else. So I call on my colleagues to stand up for what is right, to push back on this enabling of cartels, to push back on this impunity in releasing a dangerous narcotrafficker. And I thank my colleague Senator Cortez Masto for filing this resolution and bringing it to the floor of the Senate so that all Members of the Senate can go on the record about whether they believe the law should apply to everybody or whether there are, in fact, two standards of justice for people like Juan Orlando Hernandez. I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado. ____________________

Referenced legislation: SRES616