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Trump said he had called Ulbricht’s mother to tell her he would pardon her son “in honor of her and the Libertarian Movement, which supported me so strongly”.
Wildy transactional.
So... does "full and unconditional" mean he's also pardoned for the murders-for-hire? Or just for being a drug lord and America's Next Top Website Boy?
I'm actually kind of impressed he kept his word. That's unexpected
His part is signing a piece of paper with a Sharpie that one of his handlers puts in front of him. That phone call had to be horrible, Trump trying to explain to a mom he is setting her son that he knows nothing about, free because he once said he would to a large group of people he wants to grift.
Because 0% he knows the guy's name, who he was, or why he was in prison.
Edit - autocorrect =(
I mean, I'm just going to go with the most obvious grift. Ulbricht is going to go right back to operating a crypto street pharmacy. Hell, he'll do it on the open web now. He'll call it "The New Silk Road" or similar.
And then there's an agreement for the feds to not go after them. In exchange, Ulbricht uses a good portion of his earnings to become the largest single investor in Trumpcoin ever. If asked, the feds can either ignore the question or hide behind some fig leaf excuse they come up with.
It's not like Trump didn't run blatant undeniable cons in the last administration.
Yeah, it's insane that he's just openly being like, "I promise to use the powers of my office to solely benefit myself," and the Supreme Court's just like, "Get it, grrrrrl"
Although, to be fair, it did also benefit a guy who tried to murder five people.
He was never convicted on murders for hire, charges were dropped
"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 called Ulbricht's prison sentence "ridiculous."
I clearly recall Trump being president from 2016-2020, Ulbricht was sentenced to life without parole in 2015.
If it was so ridiculous, why didn't he pardon him on his first term? What changed to make it such an immediate priority now?
Because he needed the libertarian vote this time in order to win. Its a very cheap promise that guarantees votes and doesnt alienate anyone that doesnt care. Honestly, the fact that he followed through suprises me.
"But why didnt he need the libertarian vote in 16?"
Because he never intended to win the first time. The first run was a fluke. He wanted to play victim and run the media circuit for profit.
Back then he thought Bitcoin was bad and a scam. This time someone showed him how to make money by creating a scam coin and doing a pump and dump, so now he's pro Bitcoin. So pro he'll get rid of all regulation so pump and dump scams are completely legal.
Imagine how many times he was asked:
“Why don’t you have your own “Bitcoin” coin yet, Mr. President?”
Tough on drugs... For people who aren't white
Someone should really convince him to legalise all drugs to stick it to the cartels.
Wow, holy fuck, I never thought it'd happen. Even a broken clock is right twice a day I guess.
This dude is about to have a very lucrative career.
I remember this guy being a fucking idiot that paid for several fake assassinations of fake rivals. It was pretty funny.
It is funny in hindsight, knowing the assassinations were a scam. But he thought they were real, he talked in great detail about them and payed for them. This is missing from the article, I believe it was part of his indictment.
Oh yeah, he's a piece of shit for sure. I just think it's funny that he's also a moron. What kind of drug lord gets a message saying "Hey, I heard of a guy who wants to take you down, wire me a cool mil and I'll kill him for you, k?" and just... sends the money? More than once?! He definitely tried to rescue an overthrown Nigerian prince as a kid.
Don’t forget, he was caught because he posted his email in a public forum while advertising the Silk Road. That email address contained his real name.
This was one of the biggest requests of the Libertarian Party and Trump followed through with it. Could you imagine the Democratic Party agreeing to any demand from the Green Party in an attempt to get votes?
I can imagine them agreeing to all sorts of things!
Trump is a demon, but this was a good call. His sentence was wildly disproportionate to what he did.
He referred to the prosecutors as scum and said they were the ones who were persecuting him like it was some purely political shit when he is an incredibly prolific fraudsters, rapist, and traitor. He should have been arrested during the Jan 6th insurrection and never allowed free again.
His reasoning was that Ross was a libertarian and this is to honor the libertarian movement that supported him... dude! He labeled the fucking drug cartels terrorist organizations and Ross enabled so much drug trafficking it isn't funny. How the fuck do people not see through that?
Here's my convoluted conspiracy theory for how this makes sense.
Trump launches Trump Coin
Trump pardons crypto drug dealer, but not paper drug dealers
Crypto market booms
Trump sells coin to whichever idiots he hasn't scammed yet
Could someone explain like to an non American why the president gets to pardon people at all?
If someone committed a crime they're guilty, if there's new evidence that they're not guilty then that's what appeals are for.
In a perfect system, the pardon is meant to be a "check" on the powers of the other branches. (Legislative and judicial). Each branch is meant to both support AND check the others.
Obviously we are watching it all unwind. Certain things were a "gentleman's agreement" in that a president normally wouldn't over do it and just pardon tons of people. We are finding out lots of things were just assumed to be ok, but are easily abused by bad actors
My best understanding is that it was a historic right of kings, governors, etc. The idea was to show mercy to those who may have been convicted wrongly, or to people convicted of laws that have been overturned.
Trump is abusing it in ways never done before to payback political supporters.
TBF Biden abused it as well in pardoning his son.
Just FYI this is not just an American thing. In Italy for example the President of the republic can cancel or amend sentences too, and it does happen relatively often, although not in the same partisan way as in the US (but that's also because the president in Italy is a neutral and representative position).
Some example from few years ago when the president graced 33 people (each with a specific articulated motivation) https://www.ilpost.it/2021/12/10/mattarella-grazia-sette-persone-sebastian-oberleteir-heinrich/ (in Italian, but you can translate if you wish).
It’s so easy to see who bough his bitcoin “scam” now, isn’t it?
Don't know or care about this guy but all drugs should be legal.
Then you should probably care about him. He gave people around the world access to medicine that was illegal
Didn't Donald the Jester say something about fighting crime before the election? And then he drops thousands of hard criminals back on the street?
Anyone else remember the panic when you logged in and saw the notice that the site was seized by the feds?
I mean, certainly not something I experienced but I’m sure if I had it would’ve been terrifying to think the feds could find your info
I didn't even notice that this happened:
Today, President Biden granted Leonard Peltier executive clemency and commuted the remainder of his sentence.
commuted the remainder of his sentence.
Commuted it to home fucking arrest, not even full clemancy.
Probably made a deal and wants all his Bitcoin. Smart kid, you know it's hidden somewhere. Thank God he's out there double life without parole. It's inhumane.
Not to mention that undercover basically set him up to look bad.
If he didn't wanna look bad he shouldn't have sent a person he believed to be a hitman $300,000 to murder someone.
Oh... He's not even the real Dread Pirate Roberts!
Wow that brings me joy. Silkroad is where I bought my first drugs