How Trump decided to pardon Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht

In December 2023, Angela McArdle, chairwoman 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 believed could help him win back 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’s largest online drug marketplace. Mr. Ulbricht was considered a libertarian hero for building an illegal market beyond the reach of the government.

“I like to liberate people,” Mr. Trump said, according to Ms. McArdle. Five months later, she welcomed him to the national convention of the Libertarian Party, where he announced on stage that, if elected president, he would free Mr. Ulbricht.

On Tuesday, the day after his inauguration, Mr. Trump kept this promise. He called Mr. Ulbricht’s mother, Lyn Ulbricht, to tell her personally that he had granted a full pardon to her son, who is now 40 years old. In an article on Truth Social, Mr Trump said the decision was “in his honor and honor”. the Libertarian Movement, which supported me so strongly.

Mr. Ulbricht’s pardon was not an obvious item on Mr. Trump’s agenda. Unlike the nearly 1,600 people who received pardons or sentence commutations this week for their involvement in the January 6 riots, Mr. Ulbricht had few direct ties to the president. But the move was long in the making, after more than a decade of activism by Mr. Ulbricht’s supporters, including cryptocurrency investors, libertarian politicians and especially Ms. Ulbricht, who was a strong advocate of the release of his son.

Many of them have enjoyed unusual access to Mr. Trump. When it became clear last year that Mr. Trump would be the Republican nominee, they conducted a behind-the-scenes lobbying campaign for a pardon – including pledging to raise money for his election bid – in what has become a case study of how a special interest group can mobilize to influence the president.