Which other high‑level drug traffickers received pardons from Trump and what were their sentences?

1. The headline case: Juan Orlando Hernández — a 45‑year federal term erased

Former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández was serving a 45‑year U.S. federal sentence after a 2024 conviction that a U.S. jury and sentencing judge tied to facilitating the importation of more than 400 tons of cocaine into the United States; Trump granted Hernández a “full and unconditional” pardon and Hernández was released in December 2025, a move documented in congressional and media reporting and criticized as undermining a major DOJ narcotics prosecution ^{[2] [1] [3] [7]}.

2. The dark‑web kingpin: Ross Ulbricht — life in prison commuted or pardoned in second term actions

Ross Ulbricht, the founder of the Silk Road dark‑web marketplace who was sentenced to life without parole for facilitating massive illegal drug sales (and whose case was repeatedly highlighted by the administration), was among Trump’s clemency targets early in the second term, with reporting showing Trump followed through on earlier campaign promises to commute or pardon Ulbricht’s life sentence ^{[4] [6]}.

3. Celebrity‑assisted clemency: Alice Marie Johnson — from life to pardon

Alice Marie Johnson, whose life sentence for a nonviolent role in a 1990s cocaine trafficking ring had been commuted and later fully pardoned in an earlier Trump term after high‑profile advocacy, is repeatedly cited as an exemplar of clemency the president used for nonviolent drug offenders — a case often invoked by both supporters as compassionate and critics as politically selective ^{[8] [4] [9]}.

4. Local kingpins: Garnett Gilbert Smith and others with multi‑decade terms

Local and regional drug‑ring leaders also appear on Trump’s pardon list; one documented example is Garnett Gilbert Smith of Baltimore, convicted in 2014 of running a multimillion‑dollar cocaine conspiracy and sentenced to 25 years, who was reported pardoned in May ^[5]. Broader reporting from outlets such as OPB documents that Trump pardoned or commuted sentences for at least a dozen people convicted of federal drug crimes between 2017 and 2021, including some identified as high‑level dealers linked to violent rings, though full names and individual terms for all of those recipients are not exhaustively listed in the sources provided ^[4].

5. Patterns, pushback and competing narratives

Coverage shows two competing narratives: supporters frame these clemencies as correcting excessive sentencing for nonviolent offenders and delivering second chances in individual cases, a view underscored by cases like Johnson and featured in sympathetic accounts from pardoned individuals ^{[9] [8]}, while critics argue the pardons extend even to alleged or convicted kingpins and foreign leaders whose convictions were central to long DOJ investigations, warning the moves undermine U.S. counter‑drug credibility and reflect political calculations—particularly in Hernández’s case, where commentators, former DEA officials and Congressional analyses suggest the pardon could damage international cooperation and contradict aggressive anti‑drug rhetoric including controversial military strikes ^{[10] [11] [2] [1]}. Reporting also notes the administration’s broader pattern of pardoning wealthy, connected, or high‑profile defendants, a critique advanced in contemporaneous summaries of Trump’s clemency record ^{[8] [12]}.

6. Limits of the public record in these sources

The supplied reporting names several high‑profile drug‑related clemency recipients and summarizes aggregate counts, but it does not provide a definitive, exhaustive list of every high‑level trafficker pardoned nor full sentencing details for every individual beyond the cases cited above; therefore, this account is limited to the cases and aggregate estimates the sources explicitly describe ^{[4] [6] [8]}.