'Very Orwellian': Former federal prosecutor calls out Trump's hypocrisy

Former assistant U.S. attorney Sean P. Murphy on MS NOW on December 1, 2025

One former assistant U.S. attorney is arguing that President Donald Trump's pardon of a convicted drug trafficker doesn't jibe with his stated reason for blowing up boats in the Caribbean Sea.

During a Monday segment on MS NOW, Murphy — who was a Department of Justice (DOJ) prosecutor during former President Joe Biden's administration — told host Katy Tur that he was unable to make sense of Trump's recent pardon of former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, and his ongoing strikes on boats his administration alleges are trafficking drugs to the United States.

"It's very Orwellian, even the way that he says both, 'I'm going to go after drug traffickers and address this drug problem, but then pardon someone who is literally at the top of these drug trafficking activities,'" Murphy said. "He's killing people who are the lowest-level offenders without any evidence that they even know what's on their boat ... But here he's issuing this pardon."

Murphy also scoffed at Trump's claim on Air Force One that he pardoned Hernández because he was supposedly railroaded by the Biden administration. He also reminded Tur and her viewers that the most effective way to stop drug trafficking was to go after the heads of each respective drug cartel rather than low-level offenders, comparing the latter to removing the tail from a lizard that can be easily regrown.

"If a lizard is in a dangerous position, it's evolved to the point where if its tail gets trapped, the tail will come off and it can continue on and keep living," he said. "... It's much more effective to stop drug any criminal enterprise. No matter what it is, you have to stop it from the top."

"Quite frankly, I have to say my heart goes out to the prosecutors, the line prosecutors who spent years of their lives, the victims of this drug kingpin, it to watch it all go up in smoke like this is heartbreaking," he continued. "I worked on the January 6th cases for four years, and I know a little bit of what it's like to watch years of your life be obliterated with the stroke of a sharpie."