Some of the recently released emails from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s private server show a link between Clinton and members of a coup that removed Honduras’ elected president, Manuel Zelaya, from office.

After the left-leaning Zelaya was driven from office in June 2009, Roberto Micheletti was installed as interim president. Clinton reached out through Lanny Davis, who served as a Clinton adviser during the Monica Lewinsky scandal and now acts as a crisis communications advisor to those with image problems, to contact Micheletti. Davis was employed to work on behalf of the post-coup Honduran government, according to Bill Conroy at Narco News.

The U.S. government did its best to support the ouster of Zelaya. It blocked a resolution by the Organization of American States that would have required Zelaya’s return as a pre-condition for staging an election. The United States also refused to call the change in government a military coup, which would have meant a cutoff in aid to Honduras.

The interim government scheduled an election for November 2009. In the run-up to the vote, there was violence against anti-coup organizers and opposition rallies. The pro-coup faction won the election with many opposition candidates boycotting the contest. Although observers and officials from other Latin American countries questioned the fairness of the vote, U.S. State Department officials called it “free, fair and transparent.”

Since the election of President Porfirio Lobo Sosa in 2009 and the subsequent election of Juan Orlando Hernández in 2014, conditions have deteriorated in Honduras. University of California- Santa Cruz history professor Dana Frank, an expert on human rights and U.S. policy in Honduras, told Narco News previously that the “2009 military coup that deposed democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya…opened the door to a free-for-all of criminality in Honduras.”

“Since then,” she added, “organized crime, drug traffickers and gangs have flourished, worming their way ever-higher within the Honduran government, courts, attorney general’s office and congress.” Honduras is generally credited with having the highest murder rate in the world.

-Steve Straehley

To Learn More:

Emails Show Secretary Clinton Disobeyed Obama Policy and Continued Funding for Honduras Coup Regime (by Bill Conroy, Narco News)

The Honduran Coup’s Ugly Aftermath (by Jonathan Marshall, Consortium News)

During Honduras Crisis, Clinton Suggested Back Channel With Lobbyist Lanny Davis (by Lee Fang, The Intercept)

U.S. Still Training Honduras Military after Military Coup (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)