Trump Puts Drug Trafficker Who Allegedly Contracted Killings Back on the Street
On Day One, Donald Trump freed hundreds of people accused or convicted of assaulting cops, some even treated as terrorists at sentencing.
On Day Two, Donald Trump freed a global drug trafficker accused of arranging murder-for-hire.
Here’s Andy Greenberg on the pardon for Ross Ulbricht.
A little over 11 years and three months ago, Ross Ulbricht was arrested in the science fiction section of a public library in San Francisco, caught with his laptop still logged in to the Silk Road, the world’s first dark-web drug market that he created and ran under the pseudonym the Dread Pirate Roberts.
Now, after being sentenced to life in prison and spending more than a decade behind bars, Ulbricht will walk free, thanks to Donald Trump—and to the president’s ever-closer ties to the American cryptocurrency world.
“I just called the mother of Ross William Ulbright 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,” president Trump wrote on Truth Social on Tuesday evening, misspelling Ulbricht’s last name. “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!”
For close to two and a half years after Ulbricht created the Silk Road in 2011, the dark-web site facilitated the sale of vast amounts of narcotics, as well as counterfeit documents, money laundering services and, at times, guns, for hundreds of millions of dollars in bitcoin payments. After the FBI located the Silk Road’s server in Iceland in 2013 and arrested then 29-year-old Ulbricht in San Francisco, he was convicted on seven charges relating to the distribution of narcotics, money laundering, and computer hacking, as well as a “continuing criminal enterprise” statute—sometimes known as the “kingpin statute”—usually reserved for mob bosses and cartel leaders. In 2015, he was sentenced to life in prison, a punishment beyond even the 20-plus years that prosecutors in the case requested.
Since then, a Free Ross movement has steadily pressed for Ulbricht’s release, first in a failed appeal, then in petitions for clemency.
In HeatherCoxRichardson’s 1/21/25 piece
https://open.substack.com/pub/heathercoxrichardson/p/january-21-2025
After noting that various EOs including the pardons were only popular with small segments of the public prior to the election and have put various Republicans in a difficulties in defending features of them. She points out how Trump is intent on
“Demonstrating his determination to advance a particular kind of Americanism…
Trump is demonstrating that he intends to create a country dominated by the right-wing, white men who supported him.”
And this is so whether it causes difficulties for his political allies and the wider public or not. The point HCR seems to me to be making though she doesn’t put it this way directly: Trump seems intent on courting the wildest and weirdest segments of his bases, to the discomfort of his allies.
HCR concludes by emphasising the narrowness of the political appeal of the
Ulbricht pardon, how why and to whom promise came about, and the savage relish in Trump’s framing of his reasoning :
“But Trump is not helping those trying to defend his presidency. Tonight he pardoned Ross Ulbricht,
…
In May 2024, during his presidential campaign, Trump promised to pardon Ulbricht in order to court the votes of libertarians, who support drug legalization on the grounds that people should be able to make their own choices. They saw Ulbricht’s sentence as government overreach.
Tonight, Trump posted that he had pardoned Ulbricht (although Trump spelled his name wrong),saying: “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!””
Trump’s coalition is rife with contradictory agendas, and severe philosophical and theological dichotomies. Put Elon Musk and his sex-with-whoever’s-handy lifestyle next to Focus on the Family-sponsored Mike Huckabee, for example. Huckabee (up for the Israel Ambassadorship) is a Dominionist Fundie who wants the bible controlling US govt, and Musk is a full-throated libertarian, in every respect (except for his dependence on US govt contracts).
The Dems, if they get their shit together, can make significant hay out of this, and there are dozens of this kind of juxtaposition to advertise aggressively. The cleavage zones of this kind in the MAGA universe are numerous and the copy writes itself almost. Ask any libertarian if he or she is up for Evangelicals and Traditional Catholic prudes handing down legal edicts, as the Dominionist gameplan lays out.
But “if they get their shit together” is a big “if.”
More from HCR
SteveBev, I agree with your statement about courting the wildest and weirdest segment of his base…. And he’ll use people like Chansley to protect him. I’m not convinced this sort of appeal with work with anyone but that cohort. Loud and dangerous as they are, I’m hoping they’re outnumbered by more sane law enforcement. I guess it depends on where the LE is…. which states and districts.
What a mess.
Here was my in-the-moment take on that guy:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/1/14/2009226/-Stop-the-Real
ha ha ha. Good one. ty
So much for Pam Bondi’s promise to review Trump’s pardons one at a time. She was almost certainly lying, but Trump also blindsided everyone by just doing it without notice. As deputy chief of staff, btw, Stephen Miller, who is railroading these issue through, is the third most powerful person in the White House and able to whisper in Trump’s ear night and day.
I also think Trump is desperate, having been frustrated through four years in court and in the wilderness, to exact his revenge as forcefully and plentifully as possible.
He might also have been responding to the sermon from an Anglican woman bishop that rightfully embarrassed him before the world. It would have been his “fuck you” response to her plea for justice and mercy. He would rather have his pound of flesh.
I have a note in the next post about my wild arse guess theory, but apropos here is that the effect of the releases is creation of a motivated private militia already armed with a defined internal command structure and ready to act like the brownshirts they are.
Let’s see how the next round of protests go and who shows up to ‘restore order’.
I wonder if “Tiny” Toeisei (sp?) will be amongst them. Tiny was a proud boy who attempted to beat on a BLM protester in Portland, OR. The protester ran to get away, but Tiny chased him, and the protester pulled a pistol and shot Tiny in the lower leg. Apparently, the shot did some real damage, and Tiny hasn’t been seen at any protest since, and the identity of the shooter isn’t known.
The right-wing thugs aren’t the only ones armed.
yep, and going forward even more so
Tiny’s earliest release date on state charges is in 2030: Earliest Release Date: 04/30/2030. Fortunately T can’t touch those.
Rugger_9, you are right. Now let’s see if they spring for matching uniforms.
One of the J6 pardonees (assaulted a cop with a flagpole) last lived 10 minutes from me. I may have to pay a visit to exercise my free speech.
It should be ok. Looks like law is off the table in favor of personal right to do whatever. Take what you want and kill who you will. its all good in the new America.
Jordan Klepper Crashes Trump’s Inauguration Weekend | The Daily Show (also discusses pardons)
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiDq5ECnx7c&t=336s)
I disagree with the general tenor that Ulbricht was in any way dangerous or deserving of a life sentence. He pioneered the use of crypto having worth able to buy something, by setting up a then innovative website for trading in goods. There were attempted murder for hire dimensions which are unsavory, but it was a web innovator smacked hard because the authorities wanted to make an example. Recall, Hunter Biden suffered the same motives.
Life, for what Ulbricht did is way, way out of line with subsequent crypto pirate sentencing. He served ten, eleven years, about in line with crypto/money laundering sentencing as I understand it these days, pleas and all (Ulbricht was not offered a plea as I recall reporting). Making an example with a general deterrence motive is short term thinking. Usually not working. Ars Technica published a fair treatment of the pardon, linking to detailed history coverage it published when Silk Road was news – https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/01/silk-road-founder-ross-ulbricht-pardoned-by-trump-10-years-into-life-sentence/
Zhou paid four billion and did not spend a day in jail, and his operations were more widespread than Ulbrichts. Unequal treatment? Ya betcha. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/binance-and-ceo-plead-guilty-federal-charges-4b-resolution
“There were attempted murder for hire dimensions which are unsavory, but it was a web innovator smacked hard because the authorities wanted to make an example. Recall, Hunter Biden suffered the same motives”
Ok class, shall we start with the logical flaws? Or does someone have a point to make about argument premised upon a claimed ethical principle, untethered from any rigorous moral reasoning?
“…Unsavoury, but…”
Federal prosecutors alleged that Ulbricht had •paid $730,000•in murder-for-hire deals targeting •at least five people• because they purportedly threatened to reveal the Silk Road enterprise
United States of America v. Ulbricht, 15-1815-cr, pg 33 (2d Cir. May 31st, 2017) (“For example, because Ulbricht contested his responsibility for the five commissioned murders for hire, the district court found by a preponderance of the evidence that Ulbricht did, in fact, commission the murders, believing that they would be carried out.”)
Murder-for-hire doesn’t do it for you, Error Prone?
For me it’s the flaming hypocrisy of pardoning someone who surely channeled more fentanyl and its precursors into this country than most immigrants could imagine, yet blaming the “crisis” on brown people desperately seeking asylum.
Thanks to you and Ithaqua0; I debated about approving the comment above but I assumed somebody here would apply the much-needed whump.
My understanding is that they had him cold on five murder-for-hires – undercover agents, emails, the whole nine yards – but didn’t bother to prosecute because he already got the life sentence. The pardon does not, I believe, cover those crimes, so he could be prosecuted for them and wind up back in prison for the rest of his life, as he so richly deserves.
“Attempted murder for hire” is “unsavory”? Huh, I thought it was a major-league crime. Good to know that it’s actually on a par with owning a gun for a few weeks while getting high on illegal drugs, like 1/3 of Appalachia (and 1/4 of the rest of the country) does. All figures are completely made up by me.
Should have prefaced “murder-for-hire” in the first sentence with “attempted”. Apologies.
In fact, the reason for the life sentence is that the judge was aware of the attempted murder-for-hires at the time of sentencing, and took them into account.
There were 6 murder for hire schemes
1 was a sting by investigators
5 were scams.
Not quite sure which 5 were used in evidence at trial.
Depending on the terms of the pardon, conduct used in evidence against him to secure the conviction may be covered.
Not seen the actual terms of the order, as couldn’t find the WH release.
No question of intent, though, with six attempts. That’s enough mens rea to keep him in jail on the merits. So, why is Convict-1 so intent on setting Ulbricht free? He routinely blows off other promises to pretty powerful folks so what scared him into keeping this one?
Conspiracies don’t have to succeed to be criminally charged.