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U.S. President Donald Trump takes part in a signing ceremony after his inauguration on January 20, 2025 in the President's Room at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC. Donald Trump takes office for his second term as the 47th President of the United States. (Photo by Melina Mara-Pool/Getty Images)
Photo by Melina Mara-Pool/Getty Image

Why did Donald Trump pardon Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht?

He's yo-ho-ho-ing right out of prison.

For many of us, it’s been a truly miserable January week. However, if you’re a killer cop, a violent insurrectionist, or an international drug dealer you’ll be breaking out the champagne, as returning President Donald Trump wants to see you back on the streets as soon as possible (this does not apply to the Tiger King, to his continued consternation).

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One of the more eye-opening moments was the full and unconditional pardon of Ross Ulbricht, the founder of notorious dark web marketplace the Silk Road. This was effectively Amazon for drugs, letting you use cryptocurrency to pay for narcotics to be delivered through the mail, often in faux-Amazon packaging so as not to raise suspicions. Ulbricht operated the site anonymously under the name “Dread Pirate Roberts,” going to great lengths to hide his true identity.

After an extensive investigation, the FBI shut the site down in October of 2013 and arrested Ulbricht after he slipped up and revealed his email address. In Feb. 2015 he was found guilty in federal court of money laundering, drug trafficking, and computer hacking, and was told he’d spend the rest of his life behind bars.

The surprisingly lengthy sentence was imposed due to the harm the Silk Road was said to have inflicted. U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said at the sentencing hearing: “Make no mistake: Ulbricht was a drug dealer and criminal profiteer who exploited people’s addictions and contributed to the deaths of at least six young people.” Those six deaths included a 27-year-old Microsoft employee who died from a heroin overdose and two teenagers who purchased the synthetic hallucinogen known as “N-Bomb”.

Debate raged over whether Ulbricht was responsible for those deaths and if that justified him spending the rest of his life behind bars. He went on to make repeated pleas for clemency, sending a statement to Joe Biden that:

“Over countless hours, I have searched my soul and examined the misguided decisions I made when I was younger. I have dug deep and made a sincere effort to not just change what I do, but who I am. I am no longer the type of man who could break the law and let down so many.”

His case became a cause célèbre in the Libertarian Party and Trump capitalized on that by appearing at their May 2024 conference vowing to commute Ulbricht’s sentence upon taking office. Trump has not only fulfilled that promise, but he’s gone one step further by issuing a full pardon. In a post on Truth Social, he said:

“I just called the mother of Ross William Ulbricht to let her know that in honor of her and the Libertarian Movement, which supported me so strongly, it was my pleasure to have just signed a full and unconditional pardon of her son, Ross. The scum that worked to convict him were some of the same lunatics who were involved in the modern day weaponization of government against me. He was given two life sentences, plus 40 years. Ridiculous!”

So, if we’re trying to pin Trump’s reasoning it appears to be twofold. He made a promise to the Libertarian Party that he would do something about Ulbricht’s situation, and seems to have genuinely been outraged by his colossal sentence. Bubbling under this is likely pressure from cryptocurrency advocates who view Ulbricht as a martyr to their cause.

Either way, this action will delight Trump’s supporters and give him ample ammunition to argue that — like him or not — he’s doing exactly what he said he would during the campaign.


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David James
I'm a writer/editor who's been at the site since 2015. Love writing about video games and will crawl over broken glass to write about anything related to Hideo Kojima. But am happy to write about anything and everything, so long as it's interesting!