Shamita Basu

Hernandez had sent a four-page letter to Trump pleading his innocence and said he had found strength in the president's resilience in the face of, quote, persecution and prosecution.

His conviction was, according to Trump, a Biden witch hunt.

But the prosecutors began looking into Hernandez's drug connections before even Trump's first term.

And the judge who ultimately found him guilty said that evidence showed not only was Hernandez using his position of power to support cartels, he also deployed his nation's police and military to protect the drug trade.

Hernandez's brother was arrested on drug trafficking charges, too, during Trump's first term, a case partly led by a close Trump ally.

As Hernandez walks free, he faces an uncertain future.

Apparently, he wants to go back to his home country where his family is based.

He has no U.S.

legal status, but going back could get complicated if his political allies fail to take power.

Election results in Honduras are being counted right now, and they're on a knife edge.

Trump has talked directly about the race, saying U.S.

aid for the country was contingent on Hernandez's conservative party winning.

He has since suggested the count is being rigged against them without providing evidence.

Rodolfo Pastor was an advisor to the outgoing, left-leaning president of Honduras.

He told Democracy Now that Trump was threatening Honduras for making a sovereign decision.

Pastor also noted that Trump's positioning toward Honduras was in stark contrast to his approach to Venezuela's ruling Socialist Party and its president, Nicolas Maduro, who the administration has characterized as heading up a drug cartel, a charge that Maduro denies.

Latin America analyst and editor-in-chief of America's Quarterly, Brian Winter, alluded to this difference in approach on CNN's Amanpour show earlier this week.

The elections in Honduras had high turnout and were carried out peacefully, but officials say they're encountering technical issues.

Analysts warned Reuters that if the counting drags on and results in a virtual toss-up, more than one party could claim victory, increasing the risk of civil unrest.

Now let's turn to a story that caught our eye about all those spit-in-a-tube home DNA tests.