- President Donald Trump signs ‘full and unconditional’ pardon for Ross Ulbricht
- The Silk Road operator was sentenced to two life sentences and an additional 40 years.
- Trump said the same ‘crazy people’ were behind the fight against him
President Trump signed a “full and unconditional” pardon for Silk Road founder and operator Ross Ulbricht.
Silk Road was a notorious dark web marketplace selling illegal drugs, hacking tools and stolen passports during its operation between 2011 and 2013.
Ulbricht, imprisoned since 2015, was arrested in 2013 and then convicted in 2015 of conspiracy to commit drug trafficking, money laundering and computer hacking. The result was two life sentences and an additional 40 years without parole.
Trump pardons Silk Road operator
The president informed Ulbricht’s mother of the pardon by telephone, he said on TRUTH Social.
“I just called Ross William Ulbricht’s mother to let her know that in her honor and in honor of the Libertarian Movement, which has supported me so strongly, I had the pleasure of signing a full pardon and unconditional love for her son, Ross,” the message read.
Trump called the conviction “ridiculous,” adding that the same “crazy people” who convicted Ulbricht were also involved in “the modern-day weaponization of government against [himself].”
Silk Road was a dark website accessible through the open-source, decentralized Tor browser. It supports anonymized transactions through Bitcoin – something he said during his sentencing was important to his desire to “empower people to make choices in their lives and enjoy privacy and anonymity “.
The site is believed to have generated more than $200 million in drug sales during its short two-year lifespan, but Ulbricht acknowledged the site’s unintended consequences. Court documents also said the site had nearly a million registered users.
“I was trying to help us move toward a freer and fairer world,” he said in 2021 (via SiliconANGLE).
Ulbricht, who went by the alias “Dread Pirate Roberts,” was also accused of soliciting six murders for hire, but no evidence was found.
The current president previously pledged to immediately commute Ulbricht’s sentence if re-elected, which Ulbricht shared with X on May 26, 2024.
No further comments from Trump or Ulbricht have been shared at this time.
