President Trump issues full and unconditional pardon to Ross Ulbricht

( Post Millennial )

On Tuesday evening, President Donald Trump issued a full and unconditional pardon for Ross Ulbricht, founder of online marketplace Silk Road. Ulbricht was serving a life sentence after a conviction over the use of the platform ny online drug dealers who conducted over $200 million in sales using bitcoin as currency.

Trump had promised to pardon Ulbricht, who is 40-years-old, and was arrested in 2013. After issuing the pardon on the second day of his 2nd White House term, Trump spoke of the call he made to Ulbrecht's mother to let her know her son would be freed. Ulbricht went by Dread Pirate Roberts on the platform, an homage to The Princess Bride.

"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," he said. "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 attended the Libertarian Convention earlier in the campaign season and although the party went with another nominee for president, many were enthused by Trump's promised pardon for Ulbricht. The case was one of the first dealing with online marketplaces and bitcoin. Prosecutors alleged that Ulbricht had engaged in murder for hire as a means to protect the site, though "they also said no evidence exists that any murders were atually carried out," Reuters notes.

The Libertarian Party believed that Ulbricht's conviction was government overreach. Silk Road, which ran on the Tor network, was an online black market where nearly anything could be anonymously bought and sold. Over 100,000 users were active on the platform. 

"I wanted to empower people to make choices in their lives and have privacy and anonymity," Ulbricht said when he was sentenced in May 2015.

At trial, Ulbricht said that Silk Road was meant to be a "freewheeling, free market site." His lawyers contended that Ulbricht had "handed off the website to others and was lured back toward its end to become the 'fall guy' for its true operators," per Reuters.

Trump has issued many, many pardons and executive orders since taking office on Monday. OVer 1,500 J6ers were pardoned while others saw their sentenced commuted. Trump was initially criticized for not pardoning Ulbricht along with the others, but he made good on that promise on Tuesday.