What Kind Of Dirty, Nasty, Sleazy New Trump Pardon Deals Are These?
It's always something.
Convicted felon President Donald J. Trump has been railing pardons and clemencies like Tony Montana at a desk of cocaine, with nearly 2,000 people gifted get-out-of-jail free cards in his second term, including those 1,570 January 6 rioters. (We tried to count the exact number, but got eye strain.) Most of the rest of the recipients are of the financial fraud variety. Game recognizes game! But there are sure a lot of drug dealers too. And bribe-takers.
And now Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar, who just happens to be by far the most conservative member of the Democratic House delegation, anti-abortion-rights, the big-oil friendliest, and given the bribe-y crimes he got indicted for in 2022, probably the shadiest. Sure smells like an Eric Adams kind of situation! What favors might Dear Leader call upon in return? We like our elected representatives un-corrupt, so we do not have to wonder.
Oh yes, we remember the Cuellar case now, including the part about his wife Imelda, just like the shoe-fetishist grift legend of the Philippines. Must everyone have a Dickensian name?
Anyway, Imelda of Texas and husband Henry were charged with taking $600,000 in bribes from a bank in Mexico and an oil and gas company in Azerbaijan, and with the help of two no-show-job political consultants who later pleaded guilty, funneling said bribes through shell companies owned by Imelda, while Henry acted as an unregistered foreign agent for Azerbaijan from 2014 to 2021, doing favors like advocating for their side in their border dispute with Armenia, and accusing Armenia of being a proxy of Russia in a speech to Congress.
And as is always the way with such people, see also Paul Manafort ostrich jacket, the Cuellars allegedly used their filthy lucre to fund a lavish lifestyle, including a $12,000 gown, cars, fine dining and shopping trips. A lady needs pampering so she doesn’t get dishpan hands laundering all that money! (Allegedly!)
But mean old Joe Biden’s DOJ raided the Cuellars’ Laredo home in 2022, and the couple found themselves facing up to 204 years in prison if convicted. If only the bank and oil company had sent that money later, as a tip! According to the Supreme Court, that would have been fine.
SIGH.
Trump announced their pardons on his Truth Social, of course, along with a pleading letter from their daughters.
We are sure Trump did that just out of the goodness of his heart and, again, expects nothing in return.
Then there’s the latest drug dealer pardon! At the same time Pete Hegseth has been blowing up boats of fishermen in the Caribbean because (allegedly) carrying drugs is the exact same thing as firing on US soldiers with guns as far as Pew Pew Pete is concerned, the commander-in-chief has been doing real-life narco-terrorists a whole lot of favors.
Such as the former president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández. He was convicted of proudly flooding the US with literal tons of cocaine, earning millions for the world’s most violent cartels, and was sentenced to 45 years in prison. And now he is out, thanks to a Trump pardon that Roger Stone claims to have pushed.
Thanks to the boost, and a new promise of aid, now the candidate from Hernández’s National Party, Nasry “Tito” Asfura, is poised to win the presidency of Honduras. For “America First,” Trump sure is sticking his fat little fingers in a whole lot of Central and South American goings-on.
Trump moaned to reporters over the weekend, “the people of Honduras really thought he was set up, and it was a terrible thing. He was the president of the country, and they basically said he was a drug dealer because he was the president of the country.”
Well, yes, because he was president, and ALSO the way he accepted a $1 million bribe from El Chapo to allow cocaine shipments to breeze through Honduras. And the way he bragged to a witness, “We are going to stuff the drugs up the gringos’ noses, and they’re never even going to know it.”
Speaking of El Chapo, one of his sons, Joaquín Guzmán López, just pleaded guilty to two counts of drug trafficking and continuing criminal enterprise in federal court in Chicago. Finally, JGL detailed the story of how he helped kidnap rival drug lord Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, who was loaded onto a plane, drugged, and delivered into US custody, angering Mexico’s then-President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who suspected US authorities of being behind it.
In May, Trump gave special Golden Visas to said kidnapper’s mother and 16 other relatives of his and his brother Ovidio’s, allowing them to walk across the border from Tijuana to San Ysidro, shuffling rollerbags that Mexican media says were stuffed with $70,000 in cash.
What else did the DOJ get from the Chapocitas for that incredible, unheard-of gift, while other refugees from around the world who did things like help the CIA in wars are getting sent packing? We will probably never know.
And don’t forget the deal little Marco Rubio crafted with El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele, to deliver unto him informants of the drug cartel MS-13 that he wanted, ones who had previously testified to the incriminating dirt that Bukele met with top members of MS-13 numerous times between 2012 and 2015 while mayor of San Salvador, and quid pro quo-ed them to reduce the number of “public murders” to help himself get elected president. Allegedly.
Yep, Trump sure has done a lot of drug pardons and clemency! Michael Harris, co-founder of Death Row Records, serving 33 years in prison on cocaine charges. Charles Lavar Tanner, also cocaine charges. Larry Hoover Jr., another fitting name, also cocaine charges, with a side of murder. Garnett Gilbert Smith, cocaine. Anabel Valenzuela, meth and money laundering. Edward Ruben and Joe Angelo Sotelo, cocaine and other stuff. And Robert Henry Harshbarger, a pharmacist and husband of Tennessee Rep. Diana, who was convicted of misrepresenting unapproved, cheaper medications from China as approved kidney dialysis drugs.
And of course Trump pardoned Ross Ulbricht, who once ran the largest online drug marketplace on earth, and may have tried to contract for a murder or two.
Is the Trump family planning to set up their own drug-running operation? It would be irresponsible not to wildly speculate! They’ve sure got the crypto infrastructure to do it. And while Venezuela isn’t a major provider of drugs to the US itself, it is a major hub for drugs headed all over the world. Wouldn’t that be a coup!
What a day of geographical learning we have had.
In short and in conclusion, this administration sure is some filth, and the depths of said hypocrisy and filth are a new surprise every day!
Just trying to stay on the bright side.
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