Trump Grants Full and Unconditional Pardon to Silk Road Founder Ross Ulbricht
On January 21, 2025, his second day in office, President Donald Trump signed a full and unconditional pardon for Ross William Ulbricht in Washington, D.C. The clemency list published by the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of the Pardon Attorney shows it was the only pardon granted that day, ending the life sentence Ulbricht had been serving since 2015.
Announcing the decision on Truth Social that evening, Trump said he had just called Ulbricht's mother to let her know that, in honor of her and of the Libertarian Movement, which had supported him so strongly, it was his pleasure to have signed a full and unconditional pardon of her son, Ross. "He was given two life sentences, plus 40 years. Ridiculous!" Trump wrote.
Ulbricht founded Silk Road, the darknet marketplace that operated from 2011 to 2013 and was used to trade narcotics and other illicit goods and services. The Justice Department's clemency record lists his original sentence: life imprisonment with lifetime supervised release, imposed on May 29, 2015, in the Southern District of New York, on offenses including aiding and abetting distribution of drugs over the internet, continuing criminal enterprise, computer hacking conspiracy, fraud with identification documents conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy.
Arrested in San Francisco in October 2013, Ulbricht had spent more than 11 years in prison by the time of the pardon. In May 2024, addressing the Libertarian National Convention, Trump had promised to commute Ulbricht's sentence on his first day in office if elected; the full pardon went beyond that pledge, wiping out both the sentence and the conviction. After the pardon was signed, Ulbricht was released from a federal prison in Arizona.
(Source: U.S. Department of Justice)
Source: U.S. Department of Justice
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：暗网市场「丝绸之路」被执法机关查封后、其网站首页显示的查封通告图。（美国联邦调查局，公共领域，经 Wikimedia Commons） / Photo: The seizure notice displayed on the Silk Road website after law enforcement shut down the darknet marketplace. (Federal Bureau of Investigation, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)
