In December 2023, Angela McArdle, the chair of the Libertarian Party, flew to Mar-a-Lago to meet with Donald J. Trump.
Mr. Trump wanted to know how to win over libertarian voters, a constituency he thought could help him win back the presidency, Ms. McArdle said in an interview. She had the answer: Free Ross Ulbricht, a Bitcoin pioneer who was sentenced to life in prison in 2015 for setting up Silk Road, the world's largest online drug marketplace. Mr. Ulbricht was considered a libertarian hero for building an illegal market beyond the government's reach.
“I love liberating people,” Mr. Trump said, according to Ms. McArdle. Five months later, she hosted him at the Libertarian Party's national convention, where he announced on stage that if elected president, he would release Mr. Ulbricht.
On Tuesday, the day after his inauguration, Trump made good on that promise. He called Mr. Ulbricht's mother, Lyn Ulbricht, to tell her personally that he had granted a full pardon to her son, now 40. In a post on Truth Social, Mr. Trump said the decision was “in honor of her and the Libertarian Movement, which so strongly supported me.”
Mr. Ulbricht's pardon was not an obvious agenda item for Mr. Trump. Unlike the nearly 1,600 people who received pardons or commutations this week for their involvement in the Jan. 6 riot, Mr. Ulbricht had few direct ties to the president. But the move had been long in the making, after more than a decade of activism by Mr. Ulbricht's supporters — including cryptocurrency investors, libertarian politicians and especially Ms. Ulbricht, who has been an outspoken supporter of her son's release.
Many of them have enjoyed an unusual level of access to Mr. Trump. When it became clear last year that Mr Trump would be the Republican nominee, they waged a behind-the-scenes lobbying campaign to secure a pardon – including a promise to raise money for his election bid – in what has become a case study of how a special interest group can mobilize to influence the president.
Ms. McArdle said she was put in touch with Mr. Trump by Richard Grenell, one of his longtime advisers and a former acting director of national intelligence, who suggested treating conversations with Mr. Trump as business negotiations.
“Ric said, 'He's a dealmaker, Angela,'” she said. “Don't be afraid to ask for something.”
Mr. Grenell, Ms. Ulbricht and the Trump administration did not respond to requests for comment.
Mr. Ulbricht's pardon shows “that if you have a concentrated group 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 that way.”
Mr. 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 only access through a special browser. Silk Road facilitated more than 1.5 million transactions and generated more than $200 million in revenue from the sale of heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine and other drugs, authorities said. Users anonymously transacted with Bitcoin, an emerging cryptocurrency at the time, and could post Amazon-style product reviews.
In 2013, the FBI arrested Mr. Ulbricht at a San Francisco library and accused him of running Silk Road. In court, prosecutors presented evidence that Mr. Ulbricht had also solicited the killings of people he considered a threat to the company, although he was never tried on murder-for-hire charges and there was no evidence that any killings had occurred.
At least six deaths were attributed to drugs purchased on the Silk Road, prosecutors said in court. A federal judge in the Southern District of New York, where the case was tried, called Mr. Ulbricht “the kingpin of a global digital drug trafficking enterprise” whose actions were “terribly destructive to our social fabric.” In 2015, he was given a life sentence for drug distribution, money laundering and other charges, and was eventually transferred to a federal prison in Arizona.
The punishment struck some legal experts as harsh. It also sparked protests from libertarians opposed to harsh drug penalties and crypto enthusiasts who saw Mr. Ulbricht as a pioneer.
Silk Road “helped a million people get Bitcoin,” said David Bailey, the CEO of the news publication Bitcoin Magazine, which campaigned for Mr. Ulbricht's release. “He represents many of the ideological views of our community.”
From prison, Mr. Ulbricht played up his connection to Bitcoin. In October 2018, he sent a letter to his mother to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the cryptocurrency's founding and likened himself to a “proud parent” of the technology.
“I guess I'm the estranged father in prison who can't be there to help raise his child,” he wrote in the letter, which was later published by Bitcoin Magazine.
On social media accounts maintained by his family, Mr. Ulbricht also shared artwork, updates on his prison gardening and thoughts on new technologies. The accounts posted links to online petitions asking for clemency, tagging Mr. Trump and Trump's family members.
Behind the scenes, Ms. Ulbricht worked to popularize the “Free Ross” slogan, which became a rallying cry at crypto conferences. She also worked with Republican politicians and far-right influencers, hoping to reach Trump's inner circle.
After losing the 2020 election, Mr. Trump considered releasing Mr. Ulbricht, and at least one lobbyist was paid $22,500 to secure his release, according to financial filings. But Mr. Trump left office without taking action.
“The higher the hope, the greater the disappointment, and our hopes were sky high for a reduced sentence,” Mr. Ulbricht's family posted on social media in January 2021.
The new Republican presidential campaign offered a new opportunity.
In 2023, Ms. Ulbricht renewed her effort to reach out to influential Republicans, including Vivek Ramaswamy, who was running for president, two people close to her said. Mr. Ramaswamy, who did not respond to a request for comment, vowed to release Mr. Ulbricht if elected and spoke openly about the meeting with his mother.
In late 2023, Ms. McArdle was approached by Mr. Grenell, who asked for advice on Mr. Trump's behalf about pursuing the libertarian vote, she said. Soon she was on a plane to Florida to meet Mr. Trump.
During the meeting, Ms. McArdle told Mr. Trump that Mr. Ulbricht was the victim of over-prosecution and a biased criminal justice system, echoing complaints the former president had made since leaving office.
“It's the same lawsuits in New York that are giving you a hard time,” she told him.
Last year, Mr. Trump and his staff also met with Mr. Bailey and other representatives of Bitcoin Magazine, who pushed for Mr. Ulbricht's release. Tracy Hoyos-López, who worked for the magazine, has said publicly that the launch was organized by Paul Manafort, Trump's 2016 campaign chairman. (Ms. Hoyos-López is the daughter of Hector Hoyos, a friend and former business partner of Mr. Manafort.)
On social media, Mr. 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 Mr. Trump with a letter from Lyn Ulbricht.
By then, Mr. Trump had already pledged at the Libertarian Party convention to release Mr. Ulbricht. He doubled down on that pledge in July at a Nashville conference hosted by Bitcoin Magazine, saying he would commute Mr. Ulbricht's sentence — allowing him to walk free, but without expunging the conviction. Around that time, Mr. Trump also met privately with Ms. Ulbricht, said Ms. McArdle, who was briefed on the meeting.
Ms. McArdle has faced backlash from other libertarians for her association with Mr. Trump. But she was still in contact with the new administration last week, urging Mr. Trump to grant Mr. Ulbricht a full pardon, not just a commutation. “Promises made, promises kept,” a Trump aide emailed her, according to a copy of the message viewed by The New York Times.
On Tuesday evening, Ms. McArdle, Mr. Bailey and Ms. Hoyos-López gathered in a livestream on X to await updates. Mr. Bailey told listeners that Ms. Ulbricht was in Arizona preparing for her son's release.
Within hours of the pardon, a photo of him was posted on an account on leaves prison with a small plant and a bag of belongings.
“FREEDOM!!!!” the message said.
Kenneth P. Vogel reporting contributed. Susan C. Beachy research contributed.
