Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign for the presidency came loaded with a myriad of promises and calls to action, many of which were explicitly stated to be day-one goals. Given that Trump has raised such a fuss about his early initiatives, American voters everywhere have been voraciously tuned in since he took office on Jan. 20. Most of his decisions, like pulling out of the World Health Organization and the Paris Climate Agreement, pardoning more than 1,000 Jan. 6 insurrectionists and reaffirming his staunch anti-transgender agenda came as no major surprise. Still, some of the 34-time convicted felon’s actions in the past several days have raised a few eyebrows. One such move includes the pardoning of criminal entrepreneur Ross Ulbricht, whom the president promised to free from his lifetime of incarceration during a campaign event courting the Libertarian vote.
The decision has surprised many onlookers, especially since throwing out blanket pardons tends to be an end-of-term move from a sitting president, rather than a way to kick off a new administration. President Biden also offered a slew of pardons within days of leaving office, including preemptive pardons for himself and his family members. So, now seems like as good a time as any to examine who Ross Ulbricht is, what he did to land himself a double life sentence in federal prison and why the controversial POTUS made freeing him a week-one priority.
Who Is Ross Ulbricht?
If you spent any time online in the late 2000s to early 2010s, you may already be familiar with the famous dark web marketplace known as the Silk Road. The service, which was named for a famous historical network of trade routes throughout Europe, Asia and Northern Africa, was designed by Ross Ulbricht in order to connect buyers and sellers of various products and services with no government intervention. Though Ulbricht maintained that his intentions were purely to facilitate a healthy and diverse marketplace for consenting adults to do as they please, the Silk Road rapidly became a home for drug traffickers, money launderers and other nefarious characters. Ulbricht describes himself as a libertarian, and modeled his business after the ideology that the government and other prying interests should not have a say in the private transactions and behavior of sovereign peoples.
Needless to say, entities including the IRS, FBI and SEC didn’t exactly jive with Ulbricht’s libertarian utopia; they coordinated over the course of several months to infiltrate the Silk Road and take him down. By the time Ulbricht was apprehended and the site was shut down in October 2013, the Silk Road had facilitated transactions totaling more than 9.5 million Bitcoin. For context, that figure would be worth over $900 billion today. By 2015, Ulbricht was convicted of a litany of federal charges, including distributing narcotics, conspiracy to commit money laundering, computer hacking and engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise. The pirating programmer was held solely responsible for the actions of over 100,000 users and slammed with a double life sentence plus an additional 40 years without the possibility of parole.
Why Did Trump Pardon Ulbricht?
Since his conviction, Ulbricht has repeatedly tried to appeal for clemency. A Change.org petition organized by his mother has accumulated over 600,000 verified signatures, with many Americans arguing that the entrepreneur was unfairly punished for the actions of others and made an example of by the federal government. His continued incarceration, and the refusal of numerous presidential administrations to acknowledge his plight, has made the 40-year-old something of a martyr to the libertarian movement, which seeks to eliminate government overreach. According to the petition, “The average prison sentence received by all other defendants related to the [Silk Road] case is six years, including the actual drug sellers, the men who helped run Silk Road, and the men behind Silk Road 2.0, a larger replica. All but one are free today.”
Despite ignoring pleas for Ross Ulbricht’s freedom during his first term in office, Donald Trump made promises during several key campaign events throughout the 2024 election. During the Libertarian National Convention in Washington last May, he explicitly stated that a pardon for the Silk Road visionary would be a major priority, and has only doubled down on this stance since cozying up with noted libertarian and billionaire CEO Elon Musk. Per a report in NPR, Trump offered an official statement following his latest pardon, explaining, “The scum that worked to convict [Ulbricht] 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!”
Could POTUS Have an Ulterior Motive?
Another element of Trump’s urgent decision to pardon Ross Ulbricht that has raised concern is the president’s recent foray into cryptocurrency. The twice-impeached head of state launched a pair of meme coins on the crypto market just days before taking office, with both coins rapidly gaining billions of dollars in total market share. Rumor has it, Ulbricht may still have access to a cold wallet containing billions in crypto, or connections to former cohorts who are keeping a portfolio for him. Though it should be noted that no such financial connection has officially been established, some conspiracy theorists have pondered whether Trump’s crypto ventures could serve as covert laundering schemes to purchase a stake in his cabinet. Again, no investigation has officially concluded such a theory, though even the most staunch supporters of the newly-minted POTUS have expressed national security concerns in connection with the crypto venture.
