During his final weeks in office in 2020, President Donald Trump considered granting clemency to Ross Ulbricht, the founder of the internet’s best-known drug market, the Silk Road. On Wednesday, the former president upped the ante and said he would personally “SAVE” the dark web impresario, who is serving a life sentence.
“I WILL SAVE ROSS ULBRICHT!” he wrote, in an all-caps post on his financially embattled Truth Social network.
Ulbricht, who used the online handle “Dread Pirate Roberts,” was convicted in 2015 on seven counts including selling narcotics and money laundering, as well as running a “continuing criminal enterprise”, a charge usually reserved for kingpins like Gangster Disciples leader Larry Hoover and Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.
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Prosecutors said Silk Road had generated $213.9 million in sales and $13.2 million in commissions from sales—including of narcotics like heroin and cocaine—before law enforcement seized and shut it down.
Ulbricht’s defense team, family, and some critics have argued the life sentence he was handed was overly harsh, noting he was not convicted of any violent crimes.
Ulbricht’s case was also tainted by government corruption. A DEA agent pleaded guilty to using an online alias to extort Ulbricht for Bitcoin while he was investigating Silk Road and a Secret Service special agent assigned to the Silk Road task force was arrested trying to flee the U.S. after he was convicted of secretly stealing $800,000 worth of Bitcoin from the site.
Ulbricht’s defense team also uncovered evidence that they said showed law enforcement tampered with evidence to cover up an agent who tried to peddle information to Ulbricht about their investigation in return for weekly payments.
While Trump has reportedly expressed “some sympathy” for Ulbricht, his continuing advocacy for the Silk Road founder appears incoherent and self-serving. The Republican presidential nominee has taken extreme positions on the drug trade, repeatedly suggesting that traffickers, smugglers, and dealers should be eligible for the death penalty.
He’s even reportedly told allies he will deploy kill squads to Mexico to assassinate cartel members if he’s re-elected. Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Trump once inquired about secretly firing missiles at Mexico to target drug labs.
Meanwhile, because Silk Road transactions were processed with Bitcoin and on the dark web, Ulbricht has become something of a cause célèbre among some crypto enthusiasts and libertarians, two demographics Trump is wooing in advance of next month’s presidential election.
Last month, he and his sons Don Jr. and Eric launched World Liberty Financial, a “cutting-edge DeFi platform” that even they seemed confused talking about.
On Tuesday, the platform opened to user sign-ups even though it’s still unclear what exactly it will do.
