Trump to pardon Silk Road's Ulbricht?

The U.S. presidential election has been the drama in the second half of this year and even at the end of the year. After several continuous lawsuits, the Trump team's lawsuits in multiple states were dismissed. When it seemed impossible to win the legal battle, on Monday this week, the U.S. Electoral College's vote officially certified Biden's election as U.S. President of the United States.

At this time, news appeared online that "Trump is considering pardoning Ross Ulbricht, the founder of the dark web Silk Road," which immediately attracted strong attention from the overseas cryptocurrency community. It was even more important than the news that adult websites supported cryptocurrency. After all, no matter what website it is, as long as the money flow is blocked, people will naturally think of cryptocurrency. Relatively speaking, whether to pardon Ross Ulbricht is of great significance.

Following the news, Michael Goldstein, founder of the Satoshi Nakamoto Institute, said that pardoning Ulbricht would be a "restoration of justice": "Giving Ulbricht clemency would be a restoration of justice. The investigation into him was corrupt, the sentence imposed was cruel and unfair, and the portrayal of him by some media outlets is inexcusable.

Compound attorney Jake Chervinsky called the sentence against him "grossly unfair": "Ross Ulbricht was sentenced grossly unjust. The judge sentenced him to life in prison on unproven charges (which were later dismissed). When he argued that his constitutional rights were violated, the Supreme Court refused to hear the case."

An online petition calling for Ulbricht's pardon has begun collecting signatures, which shows that Ulbricht still has a staggering number of "fans".

For Chinese people, this may be unbelievable. A person who sells drugs online can be pardoned by Trump, and it also attracts the support of many bigwigs in the cryptocurrency community. This itself is beyond our cognition. Why was Ulbricht pardoned?

We have collected some clues about Ulbricht from most foreigners on various websites over the years, including some people's opinions. We will simplify them:

1. Strictly speaking, Ulbricht was not an online drug dealer. He simply set up a platform where sellers and buyers could buy and sell contraband, and he earned commissions and other profits from the middle.

2. There was no precedent for this type of online platform case, so there was a lot of controversy when the lawsuit was filed.

3. Ulbricht did not create the Silk Road website, but inherited it from someone else. According to him, he was just a website administrator. His online name "DPR" stands for Dread Pirate Robuzee, one of the protagonists in "The Princess Bride" and a household name, which implies that he was not the mastermind.

4. Regarding his suspicion of murder, because the investigators used fishing methods to deceive him, no one died in the end, but he at least had a motive to kill.

5. During his trial, there was corruption among the detectives and some people believe that he was also one of the victims.

6. Is life imprisonment too harsh a sentence?

7. What he has been emphasizing on his website is various freedoms, including the freedom to buy and sell dangerous goods such as drugs, guns, and fake passports.

8. Police detectives conduct sting operations.

If such a person were in China, he would definitely be punished by law, but in the United States, he might still be able to obtain "pardon". This is hard to understand, but according to media reports, the relevant petition website has more than 300,000 signatures, which shows that the appeal is quite strong.

Will Trump pardon this "drug lord"? This may depend on how Trump handles election fraud. Trump has been making frequent moves recently, firing the Attorney General, attending the graduation ceremony at West Point, sanctioning multiple Chinese companies, removing Chinese listed companies from multiple US indexes, and tweeting about election fraud every day. However, even so, he still failed to reverse the outcome when the Electoral College voted.

Before this, Trump pardoned General Flynn (Russiagate), and then we can see that Trump intends to win over the military, which makes people speculate that if he cannot reverse the election results through legal battles, he may use force, but this is just a guess at present.

If Trump pardons too many people now, it will cause his fans to disperse and lower the morale of his camp. Therefore, he will naturally consider carefully whether to pardon them. So far, he has only pardoned a few people this year. The real intensive pardons may have to wait until at least after he formally admits his defeat in the election. Otherwise, it may be difficult for Trump himself or his family to gather political capital in the future.

In addition, there are media rumors that Trump intends to pardon Snowden. On the one hand, Snowden is famous enough. Like Ulbricht, if he is pardoned, it will improve Trump's popularity among the people, which may leave him with a good reputation. At the same time, it can also show his efforts to drain the swamp of the so-called deep government of the United States, so that he will have more popular support to run for the presidency again in four years. This is his main purpose.

But is now the best time to pardon? Actually not, because if he pardons too many people, it may send a bad message to the media, that is, he may hint at the result of his defeat, which Trump cannot accept at present. Therefore, he only pardoned a few key figures, such as General Flynn, in an attempt to win the support of the military, but not other unimportant figures. Because people like Ulbricht cannot help him overturn the election results at present.

In this case, if Snowden is pardoned, the possibility will be greater than that of Ulbricht. After all, Snowden's main purpose is to expose the darkest side of the United States. However, this is also risky and may be opposed by some congressmen, especially intelligence-related units. Moreover, Snowden is living a good life abroad now, while Ulbricht does not have such a role. Ulbricht is only involved in things like illegally providing a platform for contraband, which was not accepted by some officials. Pardoning him will inevitably arouse the disgust of some people with a "sense of justice."

If it were in the past, it would be possible for Trump to pardon Ulbricht. During Trump's term, he actually pardoned some people involved in drug crimes, such as Christian Munoz, Alice Marie Johnson, financial crimes, robbers, officials who made false statements, wealthy people who concealed taxes, several military officers, deceased historical figures, etc. But overall, these cases are basically not all big cases, and many of them are not the kind of life imprisonment. For example, a large number of people were sentenced to seven or eight years or ten years, and another part was pardoned by people around Trump or at the request of an official.

However, the pardon is now widely rumored, and there are even rumors online that Trump may pardon Assange, which is ridiculous. You should know that Assange is not an American, but an Australian citizen, so it is difficult to talk about pardon. It can be seen that the news in the media cannot be fully trusted. Of course, if a pardon is really to be granted, it seems to be possible to a certain extent. First of all, the pardon is limited to crimes committed in the United States, such as leaking US state secrets, and then we can talk about pardon, but that is only limited to the United States. As for other countries, that is another matter. For example, Assange’s current sexual harassment lawsuit is not something the United States can control, so even if Trump pardons him, it will be useless.

If Trump wants to pardon someone now, it may be one of the few powers he has. After all, for him, overturning the election results is still the most important thing. Therefore, it is also possible that he will pardon someone in order to get the support of an important person. This is what Trump is considering now.