Donald Trump pardons founder of Silk Road drug site

On By Littum

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Donald Trump has pardoned Ross Ulbricht, who was sentenced to life in prison in 2015 for creating an online marketplace for illegal drugs and hacking services.

“The scum working to convict him (Ulbricht) were some of the same lunatics who were involved in the modern weaponization of the government against me,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social late Tuesday.

During Ulbricht’s trial, US prosecutors said he had built the anonymous marketplace, known as Silk Road, to exploit the anonymity of the dark web and the digital currency bitcoin.

At the time, the case attracted the attention of bitcoin evangelists and libertarian groups who argued that the government was trying to make web hosting a criminal activity.

When Trump announced the pardon, he said it was “in honor of the liberal movement that supported me so strongly.”

Trump had promised to pardon Ulbricht, who was arrested in 2013, at the liberal political party’s national convention last May.