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Trump promised to commute Ross Ulbricht’s sentence at the Libertarian National Convention.
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Libertarians see Ulbricht’s life sentence as a symbol of government overreach.
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Trump also promised to include a libertarian in his cabinet if elected.
Donald Trump gave a speech at the Libertarian National Convention on Saturday, promising to commute the sentence of Ross Ulbricht, the imprisoned founder of the infamous online drug marketplace Silk Road.
“If you vote for me, on day one, I will commute Ross Ulbricht’s sentence,” Trump declared, to enthusiastic applause from the crowd in Washington, DC.
The move to highlight Ulbricht was strategically targeted at libertarian voters.
Ulbricht, now 40, who was sentenced to life in prison in 2015, is a hero of the US libertarian movement.
The Libertarian Party, with its long-standing advocacy for drug legalization and criminal justice reform, has consistently lobbied for Ulbricht’s release, viewing his life sentence as a symbol of government overreach.
Ulbricht became interested in libertarian values at university, according to a Wired report, where he discovered the ideas of Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises, a defender of the moral purpose of free-market capitalism and a staunch opponent of interventionism. Ulbricht embraced these ideas of uncompromised freedom, according to Wired.
“When I created Silk Road, I wasn’t looking for financial gain,” Ulbricht wrote in a sincere letter to the judge of first instance in 2015.
“I created Silk Road because I believed at the time that people should have the right to buy and sell whatever they want, as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone,” he wrote.
In 2015, he received life sentence without the possibility of parole. He was also fined $183,961,921.
Ulbricht is being held at the United States Penitentiary in Tucson.
Most of the products sold on Silk Road were illegal hard drugs, the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York said in its trial.
“The purpose of Silk Road was to give people the freedom to make their own choices, to pursue their own happiness,” wrote Ulbricht. “While I still don’t think people should be denied this right, I have never sought to create a website that would provide another avenue for people to feed their addictions.”
Trump, who was loudly booed and questioned During much of his speech at the Libertarian National Convention, he managed to partially win over the public by committing to Ulbricht’s release.
Katherine Yeniscavich, Libertarian Party national committee member, told the politician“It’s one of the things we’ve wanted since his first term.”
In addition to Ulbricht’s promise, Trump made other promises, promising to include a libertarian in his cabinet and others in senior administrative positions if elected.
Correction: May 30, 2024 – Due to an editing error, an earlier version of this story called Ross Ulbricht “wrongfully imprisoned” without making clear that it was characterizing the views of his supporters.
Read the original article at Business Insider
