For all his many defects and cloudy motives for doing it, Trump deserves applause for this. It's with actions such as this that he also shows why he's a genuine maverick of a president, with who it's genuinely possible to expect deeply unexpected actions (for better or worse).
For all his talk of being progressive and cultivation of a youthful maverick image of his own, you would have never seen such a move from Obama and forget about it under the mealy mouthed Biden or a hypothetical Hillary administration. With Trump, rather uniquely and singularly, it happened.
Ulbricht made many mistakes, less so morally but definitely legally, of the kind with which he could have expected to cause punishment to rain down upon him, but the way in which his case was managed and the way in which he was sentenced truly were both disgusting in numerous ways.
They were classic examples of prosecutorial and political vengeance and give much truth to Trump's own description of the same as "The scum that worked to convict him were some of the same lunatics who were involved in the modern day weaponization of government against me. He was given two life sentences, plus 40 years. Ridiculous!”
If you in any way mistrust heavy-handed government prosecutions and persecutions, it's hard to disagree much, even if it's also not hard to imagine Trump being just as abusive in other contexts where prosecution of enemies would suit his interests and personal vengeance.
Now if we see him pardon Snowden too, i'd happily give a standing ovation.
Before someone here smugly chimes in about how Ulbricht also tried to hire out a murder by contract, bear in mind that this accusation was riddled with holes, suspicions of entrapment and in any case wasn't formally used for his sentencing, AND still wouldn't justify the kind of onerously grotesque sentence that was dumped on him. Pedophiles who committed child murders have been sentenced to less than Ulbricht was.
the fact that he will never pardon Snowden tells you all you need to know: this pardon was pandering and suits his own purposes. there are no higher principles here besides quid pro quo.
Trump is literally into the second day of his presidency, nobody can know whether he might or might not pardon even Snowden for some reason of his own. I had zero expectation of a pardon for Ulbricht yet here it is and it's more impressive than Obama's pandering (but to me still applause-worthy) pardon of Manning, though none came for Assange.
I disagree that it was pandering to the LGBTQ lobby.
I agree Assange should not have been pursued at all.
You can't directly compare the two situations. Manning was a US citizen, serving a sentence in the US. During Obama's term, Assange was not yet accused of any crime in the US, so there was no presidential pardon to be had, though Obama could have dropped the extradition request.
Biden did eventually reach a deal with Assange that allowed him to count time served -- essentially the same as commuting a sentence, so along the lines of what Manning got -- and return to Australia.
So in the end, Assange and Manning were both freed after serving time.
> Obama could have dropped the extradition request.
Yes he could have. And did not. Whereas Manning was freed, because s/he had sponsors in the right lobbies.
> Biden did eventually reach a deal with Assange
Mostly driven by the UK government, because it would have looked bad to deport a journalist on the orders of our colonial masters. And again it took years, when it could have been done in a minute - like Trump did with his allies. Because the reality, beyond words, is that the Democratic establishment is basically as much an enemy of the free press as the Republican one is, when in power.
Those of you downvoting this comment, I sincerely wonder if it's because you really think Ulbricht deserves to rot the rest of his life in prison despite a deeply flawed, openly vengeful trial and a sentence that simply doesn't usually correspond to any of what he was convicted of in most cases, or because you simply can't, emotionally, approve of anything Trump might do, even if you'd otherwise agree with it.
I'd say either posture is an insult to your own capacity for reasoned thinking, but I am curious about which kind of insult it is.
For all his talk of being progressive and cultivation of a youthful maverick image of his own, you would have never seen such a move from Obama and forget about it under the mealy mouthed Biden or a hypothetical Hillary administration. With Trump, rather uniquely and singularly, it happened.
Ulbricht made many mistakes, less so morally but definitely legally, of the kind with which he could have expected to cause punishment to rain down upon him, but the way in which his case was managed and the way in which he was sentenced truly were both disgusting in numerous ways.
They were classic examples of prosecutorial and political vengeance and give much truth to Trump's own description of the same as "The scum that worked to convict him were some of the same lunatics who were involved in the modern day weaponization of government against me. He was given two life sentences, plus 40 years. Ridiculous!”
If you in any way mistrust heavy-handed government prosecutions and persecutions, it's hard to disagree much, even if it's also not hard to imagine Trump being just as abusive in other contexts where prosecution of enemies would suit his interests and personal vengeance.
Now if we see him pardon Snowden too, i'd happily give a standing ovation.
Before someone here smugly chimes in about how Ulbricht also tried to hire out a murder by contract, bear in mind that this accusation was riddled with holes, suspicions of entrapment and in any case wasn't formally used for his sentencing, AND still wouldn't justify the kind of onerously grotesque sentence that was dumped on him. Pedophiles who committed child murders have been sentenced to less than Ulbricht was.