In December 2023, Angela McArdle, president of the Libertarian Party, flew to Mar-a-Lago, Florida, to meet with Donald Trump.
Trump wanted to know how to win over libertarian voters, a constituency he thought could help him regain the presidency, McArdle said in an interview. She had an answer: free Ross Ulbricht, a Bitcoin pioneer who was sentenced to life in prison in 2015 for creating Silk Road, the world’s largest online drug marketplace. Ulbricht was considered a libertarian hero for building an illegal market beyond the reach of the government.
“I love freeing people,” Trump said, according to McArdle. Five months later, she hosted him at the Libertarian Party’s national convention, where he announced on stage that, if elected to the presidency, he would free Ulbricht.
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On Tuesday (21), one day after his inauguration, Trump fulfilled that promise. He called Ulbricht’s mother, Lyn Ulbricht, to tell her personally that he had granted a full pardon to her son, who is now 40 years old. In a post on Truth Social, Trump said the decision was “in honor of her and the Libertarian Movement who supported me so strongly.”
Ross Ulbricht’s pardon was not an obvious item on Trump’s agenda. Unlike the nearly 1,600 people who received pardons or commutations this week for their involvement in the Jan. 6 riot, Ulbricht had little direct connection to the president. But the move was long in the works, after more than a decade of activism by Ulbricht’s supporters — including cryptocurrency investors, libertarian politicians and especially Lyn Ulbricht, who was a vocal advocate for her son’s release.
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Many of them enjoyed an unusual level of access to Trump. As it became clear last year that Trump would be the Republican nominee, they ran a behind-the-scenes lobbying campaign to secure a pardon — including promising to raise money for his election campaign — in what turned into a case study of how a special interest group can mobilize to influence the president.
McArdle said she was put in touch with Trump by Richard Grenell, one of her longtime advisers and former acting director of national intelligence, who suggested she treat conversations with Trump like a business negotiation.
“Ric said, ‘He’s a negotiator, Angela,’” she said. “Don’t be afraid to ask for something.”
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Grenell, Ulbricht and the Trump administration did not respond to requests for comment.
Ross Ulbricht’s pardon shows “that if you have a concentrated base of people around Trump, you have a very good chance of getting a pardon,” said Dan Richman, a former federal prosecutor who teaches at Columbia Law School. “There are problems with the pardon system working this way.”
Ulbricht launched Silk Road in 2011 and turned it into one of the most popular outposts of the so-called dark web, a hidden corner of the internet that people can access only through a special browser. Silk Road has facilitated more than 1.5 million transactions, generating more than $200 million in revenue from the sale of heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine and other drugs, authorities said. Users anonymously transacted bitcoin, then a nascent cryptocurrency, and could post Amazon-style product reviews.
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In 2013, the FBI arrested Ulbricht in a San Francisco library and accused him of running Silk Road. In court, prosecutors presented evidence that Ulbricht had also solicited the murders of people he considered threats to the business, although he was never tried on murder-for-hire charges and there was no indication that any murders occurred.
At least six deaths were attributed to drugs purchased on Silk Road, prosecutors said in court. A federal judge in the Southern District of New York, where the case was tried, called Ulbricht “the king of a global digital drug trafficking enterprise” whose actions were “terribly destructive to our social fabric.” In 2015, Ulbricht received a life sentence for drug distribution, money laundering and other charges and was eventually transferred to a federal prison in Arizona.
The punishment appeared to some legal experts to be harsh. It also sparked protests from libertarians who opposed harsh penalties for drugs and cryptocurrency enthusiasts who saw Ulbricht as a pioneer.
Silk Road “introduced a million people to bitcoin,” said David Bailey, CEO of the news publication Bitcoin Magazinewho campaigned for Ulbricht’s release. “He represents many of the ideological views of our community.”
In prison, Ulbricht highlighted his connection to bitcoin. In October 2018, he sent a letter to his mother celebrating the 10th anniversary of the cryptocurrency’s founding and compared himself to a “proud father” of technology.
“I feel like I’m the distant father in prison who can’t be there to help raise his son,” he wrote in the letter, which was later published by Bitcoin Magazine.
On social media accounts maintained by his family, Ulbricht also shared artwork, updates about his prison gardening and thoughts about new technology. The accounts posted links to online petitions calling for clemency, tagging Trump and members of the Trump family.
Behind the scenes, Lyn Ulbricht worked to popularize the “Free Ross” slogan, which has become a rallying cry at cryptocurrency conferences. She also made contacts with Republican politicians and far-right influencers, hoping to reach Trump’s inner circle.
After losing the 2020 election, Trump considered releasing Ross Ulbricht, and at least one lobbyist was paid $22,500 to help secure his release, according to financial filings. But Trump left office without taking action.
“The greater the hope, the greater the disappointment, and our hopes were very high for a sentence commutation,” Ulbricht’s family posted on social media in January 2021.
The new Republican presidential campaign offered a new opportunity.
In 2023, Lyn Ulbricht renewed her efforts to connect with influential Republicans, including Vivek Ramaswamy, who was running for president, two people close to her said. Ramaswamy, who did not respond to a request for comment, has pledged to free Ross Ulbricht if elected and has spoken openly about meeting with his mother.
Then, in late 2023, McArdle was contacted by Grenell, who asked on Trump’s behalf for advice on how to win the libertarian vote, she said. Soon she was on a plane to Florida to meet Trump.
In the meeting, McArdle told Trump that Ulbricht was a victim of over-prosecution and a biased criminal justice system, echoing complaints the former president had made since leaving office.
“It’s the same thing in the New York courts that’s been giving you trouble,” she told him.
Last year, Trump and his team also met with Bailey and other U.S. officials. Bitcoin Magazinewho pressed for Ulbricht’s release. Tracy Hoyos-López, who worked for the magazine, has said publicly that the introduction was organized by Paul Manafort, Trump’s 2016 campaign chairman. (Hoyos-López is the daughter of Hector Hoyos, Manafort’s friend and former business partner. )
On social media, Bailey announced that he planned to raise a “$100 million war chest for the Trump campaign.” He also went to Mar-a-Lago in June, he said in an interview, where he presented Trump with a letter from Lyn Ulbricht.
At that time, Trump had already promised to free Ross Ulbricht at the Libertarian Party convention. He reinforced that promise in July at a conference in Nashville, Tennessee, organized by Bitcoin Magazinesaying he would commute Ulbricht’s sentence — allowing him to be released, but without erasing the conviction. At that time, Trump also met privately with Lyn Ulbricht, said McArdle, who was briefed on the meeting.
McArdle has faced criticism from other libertarians for his dealings with Trump. But she was still in contact with the new administration last week and called on Trump to grant Ross Ulbricht a full pardon, not just a commutation. “Promises made, promises kept,” a Trump official emailed her, according to a copy of the message seen by The New York Times.
On Tuesday night, McArdle, Bailey and Hoyos-López gathered on a live stream on social platform X to wait for updates. Bailey told listeners that Lyn Ulbricht was in Arizona, preparing for her son’s release.
Hours after the pardon, an account on X controlled by Ulbricht’s family posted a photograph of him leaving prison with a small plant and a bag of belongings.
“FREEDOM!!!!” the post said.
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