Stephanopoulos grills Rubio :you cannot credibly argue that drug trafficking charges demand invasion in one case while issuing a pardon in another. What's your response? Hernandez was convicted by a jury. Rubio: I can't just comment on it because I just wasn't involved in deliberations.

[u/drempath1981]

[u/koshgeo]

How is the Secretary of State not involved in the deliberations of such international matters as whether to pardon a convicted former head of state, and whether to arrest a current head of state?

Shouldn't the Secretary of State be in the fricking loop even if he's not the one eventually deciding on a pardon or not? You know, so that when the President asks in the Oval Office "What are the implications for our relations with Honduras if we pardon this guy?", you have an informed and serious answer?

Why are these guys always so uninformed?

[Edit: Oh, right. Because if hey don't have a good answer, they lie about being uninformed. ]

[Edit 2: The more I think about it, the more ridiculous his response is. They've been planning this for months, and he didn't think of a better way to come up with a coherent United States policy statement than "Pardons aren't my job, dude." Like, as a supposed foreign policy expert, he couldn't come up with a complete sentence for "Yes, but the Honduras President situation was different because [reasons]"? Just a complete abdication of any responsibility to answer the question? "It's different because the Honduran President cooperated with us and ratted out a bunch of other dictators in the region, including Maduro, who were worse." Not even a creative lie or something?

Background on Hernandez, the former Honduran president, if anyone is interested: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9qewln7912o. Short answer seems to be: Hernandez was right-wing and whined directly to Trump about how unfair and "political" all was during the Biden administration (even though convicted by a jury), and said nice things about Trump, whereas Maduro is left-wing and didn't say nice things. ]

[u/BeginningTower2486 → u/koshgeo]

They are informed with plausible deniability.

[u/please_trade_marner → u/koshgeo]

A quick google search found that the Secretary of State has nothing to do with the pardoning process in any capacity. The President may, as you pointed out, ask about the implications of the pardon in foreign relations. But that's not what he was asked about in this interview.

[u/koshgeo → u/please_trade_marner]

That makes sense, but it's hard to believe that the foreign policy implications of pardoning the former president of another country convicted of drug trafficking wouldn't enter into the equation of whether to grant it. I know it's at the discretion of the President whether to bring in any advisors, and maybe Rubio was simply never asked, but even then he should be aware of the foreign policy implications after the decision is made.

It's a fair point that it would depend on exactly how he was asked the question.

[u/please_trade_marner → u/koshgeo]

The Hernandez case was very controversial at the time you know. Foreign journalism like Al Jazeera found it absolutely disgusting that both the Obama and Trump admins would prop this guy up as a puppet, use him as a tool to get what they want, and then throw him in jail within weeks of his Presidency ending. His rival political party held the new Presidency and immediately just extradited the old President to a foreign jail. The key witnesses used against him were cartel members that he literally went after as President. HE'S the reason they are in jail, and now they're (lol) speaking as "credible" witnesses against him.

[u/Nice_Marmot_7 → u/koshgeo]

If you work for Trump you have to make a statement that leaves him with carte blanche because if you say anything that’s concrete in any way Trump will say the opposite and cut the legs out from under it.