{"id":20634,"date":"2025-01-23T00:06:26","date_gmt":"2025-01-23T01:06:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=20634"},"modified":"2025-01-23T01:25:04","modified_gmt":"2025-01-23T01:25:04","slug":"inside-trumps-decision-to-pardon-ross-ulbricht-the-creator-of-the-silk-road-drug-marketplace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=20634","title":{"rendered":"Inside Trump\u2019s Decision to Pardon Ross Ulbricht, the Creator of the Silk Road Drug Marketplace"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Libertarian and crypto allies of Ross Ulbricht, who was serving a life sentence for distributing drugs on his Silk Road website, leveraged President Trump\u2019s desire for political support to secure his release.<\/p>\n

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In December 2023, Angela McArdle, the chair of the Libertarian Party, flew to Mar-a-Lago to meet with Donald J. Trump.<\/p>\n

Mr. Trump wanted to know how to win over libertarian voters, a constituency he thought could help him reclaim the presidency, Ms. McArdle said in an interview. She had an answer: Free Ross Ulbricht<\/a>, a Bitcoin pioneer who was sentenced to life in prison in 2015 for creating Silk Road, the world\u2019s largest online drug marketplace. Mr. Ulbricht was regarded as a libertarian hero for building an illegal market outside the government\u2019s reach.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love freeing people,\u201d Mr. Trump said, according to Ms. McArdle. Five months later, she hosted him at the Libertarian Party\u2019s national convention, where he announced onstage that, if elected to the presidency, he would release Mr. Ulbricht.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, the day after his inauguration, Mr. Trump made good<\/a> on that promise. He called Mr. Ulbricht\u2019s mother, Lyn Ulbricht, to personally tell her that he had granted a full pardon to her son, who is now 40. In a post<\/a> on Truth Social, Mr. Trump said the decision was \u201cin honor of her and the Libertarian Movement, which supported me so strongly.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Mr. Ulbricht\u2019s pardon was not an obvious agenda item for Mr. Trump. Unlike the nearly 1,600 people who received pardons or commutations<\/a> this week for their involvement in the Jan. 6 riot, Mr. Ulbricht had little direct connection to the president. But the move had long been in the works, after more than a decade of activism by Mr. Ulbricht\u2019s supporters \u2014 including cryptocurrency investors, libertarian politicians and especially Ms. Ulbricht, who was a vocal proponent for her son\u2019s release.<\/p>\n

Many of them have enjoyed an unusual level of access to Mr. Trump. As it became clear last year that Mr. Trump would be the Republican nominee, they waged a behind-the-scenes lobbying campaign to secure a pardon \u2014 including pledging to raise money for his election bid \u2014 in what has turned into a case study of how a special interest group can mobilize to influence the president.<\/p>\n

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Libertarian and crypto allies of Ross Ulbricht, who was serving a life sentence for distributing drugs on his Silk Road website, leveraged President Trump\u2019s desire for political support to secure his release.In December 2023, Angela McArdle, the chair of the Libertarian Party, flew to Mar-a-Lago to meet with Donald J. Trump.Mr. Trump wanted to know how to win over libertarian voters, a constituency he thought could help him reclaim the presidency, Ms. McArdle said in an interview. She had an answer: Free Ross Ulbricht, a Bitcoin pioneer who was sentenced to life in prison in 2015 for creating Silk Road, the world\u2019s largest online drug marketplace. Mr. Ulbricht was regarded as a libertarian hero for building an illegal market outside the government\u2019s reach.\u201cI love freeing people,\u201d Mr. Trump said, according to Ms. McArdle. Five months later, she hosted him at the Libertarian Party\u2019s national convention, where he announced onstage that, if elected to the presidency, he would release Mr. Ulbricht.On Tuesday, the day after his inauguration, Mr. Trump made good on that promise. He called Mr. Ulbricht\u2019s mother, Lyn Ulbricht, to personally tell her that he had granted a full pardon to her son, who is now 40. In a post on Truth Social, Mr. Trump said the decision was \u201cin honor of her and the Libertarian Movement, which supported me so strongly.\u201dMr. Ulbricht\u2019s pardon was not an obvious agenda item for Mr. Trump. Unlike the nearly 1,600 people who received pardons or commutations this week for their involvement in the Jan. 6 riot, Mr. Ulbricht had little direct connection to the president. But the move had long been in the works, after more than a decade of activism by Mr. Ulbricht\u2019s supporters \u2014 including cryptocurrency investors, libertarian politicians and especially Ms. Ulbricht, who was a vocal proponent for her son\u2019s release.Many of them have enjoyed an unusual level of access to Mr. Trump. As it became clear last year that Mr. Trump would be the Republican nominee, they waged a behind-the-scenes lobbying campaign to secure a pardon \u2014 including pledging to raise money for his election bid \u2014 in what has turned into a case study of how a special interest group can mobilize to influence the president.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20636,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20634"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20634\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20637,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20634\/revisions\/20637"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}