These allegations of murders-for-hire, in actual fact, dissuaded the primary Trump administration from granting clemency to Ulbricht. The White Home in 2020 thought-about liberating Ulbricht however finally rejected the thought due to the alleged position of violence within the case, in response to one former authorities official concerned within the course of who spoke to WIRED on situation of anonymity.
Since then, nonetheless, the Trump administration has shifted its stance on Ulbricht’s case—partly, maybe, resulting from its embrace of the libertarian cryptocurrency neighborhood, for whom Ulbricht has turn into a martyr and trigger célèbre. On the Libertarian Nationwide Conference in Washington, DC, final Could, then presidential candidate Trump promised to commute Ulbricht’s sentence “on day one” if reelected. (In the end, day one handed with no clemency for Ulbricht, whilst Trump pardoned greater than a thousand contributors within the January 6, 2021, riot on the US Capitol, although Trump ally Elon Musk promised in a publish to X on Monday night that “Ross will probably be freed too.”)
Simply what position Ulbricht will play within the free world is way from clear. Even in his assertion to the choose at his sentencing listening to in 2015, Ulbricht by no means totally acknowledged the hurt inflicted by the Silk Street’s drug gross sales. And in response to Jared Der-Yeghiayan, a former Homeland Safety Investigations agent who infiltrated the Silk Street throughout the investigation, Ulbricht nonetheless exhibits little regret for his actions in his public posts to X.
“The concept of him being launched doesn’t hassle me within the least,” says Der-Yeghiayan, who now works as the top of strategic intelligence at cryptocurrency tracing agency Chainalysis. “I do get bothered if there’s now a notion that he did nothing fallacious; that doesn’t acknowledge the details of the case.”
Amongst some advocates of legal justice reform, nonetheless, Ulbricht has turn into an exemplar of oversentencing, notably on condition that he was technically charged with nonviolent crimes. “Ross has served greater than sufficient time. He has been a mannequin prisoner. He’s a first-time, nonviolent offender. He poses zero security threat to the neighborhood,” Alice Johnson, CEO of the justice reform basis Taking Motion for Good, advised WIRED in November. Johnson spent 20 years in jail herself for tried possession with intent to distribute earlier than Trump commuted her life sentence in 2018 and pardoned her in 2020. “I imagine that Ross’ case goes to pave the best way for a lot of others who’ve been unjustly given these draconian sentences to come back residence.”
On Tuesday evening, Ulbricht’s supporters celebrated his freedom and voiced their gratitude to Trump for his clemency. “Phrases can not specific how grateful we’re,” reads a tweet from @Free_Ross, an X account dedicated to the greater than decade-long effort on Ulbricht’s behalf. “President Trump is a person of his phrase and he simply saved Ross’s life. ROSS IS A FREE MAN!!!!!”
Further reporting by Joel Khalili