MSNBC Article Rating

Chris Hayes: Trump's pardon of Ross Ulbricht shouldn't fly under the radar

Jan 23, 2025 View Original Article
  • Bias Rating

    10% Center

  • Reliability

    95% ReliableExcellent

  • Policy Leaning

    10% Center

  • Politician Portrayal

    -26% Negative

Bias Score Analysis

The A.I. bias rating includes policy and politician portrayal leanings based on the author’s tone found in the article using machine learning. Bias scores are on a scale of -100% to 100% with higher negative scores being more liberal and higher positive scores being more conservative, and 0% being neutral.

Sentiments

Overall Sentiment

-3% Negative

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Bias Meter

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

74% : In a post on Truth Social, Trump wrote, "I just called the mother of Ross William Ulbricht to let her know that in honor of her and the Libertarian Movement, which supported me so strongly, it was my pleasure to have just signed a full and unconditional pardon of her son, Ross.
62% : That Russian national's donation got him entry to the Republican National Convention and a personal photo with Trump.
55% : On Tuesday, Enrique Tarrio, former leader of the Proud Boys, who was pardoned by Trump, told conspiracy theorist Alex Jones:There's a track record we should remember here.
53% : But Ulbricht has a cult following among libertarians and crypto fanboys -- groups Trump was looking to court ahead of last year's election.
47% : Trump was president once before and his use of the pardon power back then was totally unorthodox, too.
41% : And on his first full day on the job, Trump again skipped over that process, to pardon six times the number of people he pardoned in his entire first term as president.
41% : But it doesn't mean there won't be political consequences.
40% : Don't take my word for it, take Trump's.
37% : But that is not what Trump did.
36% : And, according to new behind-the-scenes reporting from NBC News, it was all a last-minute decision by Trump -- a decision that seems to have been based mostly on vibes, an indiscriminate approach that shocked even many in Trump's inner circle.
36% : What happened to that GOP?"Trump even made a point of freeing the leaders of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers militias, literal traitors to the country who tried to violently overthrow its constitutional order, as outlined in their convictions for seditious conspiracy.
29% : Two years after Trump pardoned Benton, he was convicted on six more federal counts.
27% : "If you vote for me, on Day One I will commute the sentence of Ross Ulbricht to a sentence of time served," Trump told the Libertarian National Convention back in May.
25% : After spending the past decade campaigning on the scourge of fentanyl and a deadly epidemic of opioid addiction, Trump gave a full pardon to a guy named Ross Ulbricht, the creator of the Silk Road marketplace, one of the biggest illegal drug markets in American history.
17% : But Trump didn't just commute his sentence -- which by the way might have been defensible -- he issued a total pardon to a guy who was convicted of facilitating the sale of an estimated $200 million of illegal drugs and illicit goods.
16% : But back in 2020, Trump bypassed it on his way out the door and relied on his own whims, pardoning a weird hodgepodge of criminals and defendants.

*Our bias meter rating uses data science including sentiment analysis, machine learning and our proprietary algorithm for determining biases in news articles. Bias scores are on a scale of -100% to 100% with higher negative scores being more liberal and higher positive scores being more conservative, and 0% being neutral. The rating is an independent analysis and is not affiliated nor sponsored by the news source or any other organization.

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