“We blow up ‘alleged’ drug boats in the Caribbean but pardon actually convicted drug traffickers in the U.S.," said Todd Robinson, former U.S. assistant secretary of state for international narcotics and law enforcement affairs at the State Department. "Someone help me make sense of this.”

"Trump’s vow to pardon such a high-profile convicted drug trafficker appeared to contradict the president’s campaign to unleash the might of the American military on small boats in the Caribbean and Pacific that his administration says, without evidence, are involved in drug trafficking."