In fact, these murder-for-hire allegations dissuaded the first Trump administration from granting clemency to Ulbricht. The White House in 2020 considered releasing Ulbricht but ultimately rejected the idea because of the alleged role of violence in the case, according to a former government official involved in the process who spoke to WIRED on the condition of anonymity.
However, since then, the Trump administration has changed its stance on Ulbricht’s case — perhaps in part due to its embrace of the libertarian cryptocurrency community, for which Ulbricht has become a martyr and cause celebrity. At the Libertarian National Convention held in Washington, D.C., last May, Trump, then a presidential candidate, promised to commute Ulbricht’s sentence “on Day One” if he was re-elected. (In the end, the first day passed without a pardon for Ulbricht, even as Trump pardoned more than a thousand participants in the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, despite Trump ally Elon Musk promising in his speech Post to X Monday evening that “Ross will also be released.”)
What role Ulbricht will play in the free world is far from clear. Even in his statement to the judge at his sentencing hearing in 2015, Ulbricht did not fully acknowledge the damage that drug sales had done to the Silk Road. According to Jared Der Yejiayan, the former Homeland Security Investigations agent who infiltrated Silk Road during the investigation, Ulbricht still shows little remorse for his actions in his public posts for X.
“The idea of him being released doesn’t bother me at all,” says Der Yejiayan, who now works as head of strategic intelligence at cryptocurrency tracking firm Chainalysis. “I am disturbed if there is now a perception that he did nothing wrong; This does not acknowledge the facts of the case.”
However, among some criminal justice reform advocates, Ulbricht became a model of over-sentencing, especially since he was technically charged with non-violent crimes. “Ross has served more than enough time. He has been a model prisoner. He is a nonviolent first-time offender. He poses no danger,” Alice Johnson, CEO of the justice reform organization Take Action for Good, told WIRED in November. “On the safety of the community.” Johnson herself spent two decades in prison on charges of attempted possession with intent to distribute before Trump commuted her life sentence in 2018 and pardoned her in 2020. “I think the Ross case will pave the way for “The way for many others who were unfairly given these harsh sentences to return home.”
Tuesday night, Ulbricht’s supporters celebrated his freedom and expressed their gratitude to Trump for his clemency. “Words cannot express how grateful we are,” said a tweet from @Free_Ross, an X account dedicated to more than a decade of efforts on behalf of Ulbricht. “President Trump is a man of his word and just saved a Russian life. Ross is a free man!!!!!
Additional reporting by Joel Khalili