How Trump was persuaded to pardon an online drug kingpin

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

85% : On Tuesday, the day after his inauguration, Trump made good on that promise.
63% : "I love freeing people," Trump said, according to McArdle.
57% : He also went to Mar-a-Lago in June, he said in an interview, where he presented Trump with a letter from Lyn Ulbricht.
56% : In a post on Truth Social, Trump said the decision was "in honor of her and the Libertarian Movement, which supported me so strongly." Ross Ulbricht's pardon was not an obvious agenda item for Trump.
54% : In December 2023, Angela McArdle, the chair of the Libertarian Party, flew to Mar-a-Lago in Florida to meet with Donald Trump.
54% : Soon she was on a plane to Florida to meet Trump.
53% : Around that time, Trump also met privately with Lyn Ulbricht, said McArdle, who was briefed on the meeting.
51% : As it became clear last year that Trump would be the Republican nominee, they waged a behind-the-scenes lobbying campaign to secure a pardon -- including pledging to raise money for his election bid -- in what has turned into a case study of how a special interest group can mobilize to influence the president.
50% : Trump wanted to know how to win over libertarian voters, a constituency he thought could help him reclaim the presidency, McArdle said in an interview.
50% : Ross Ulbricht's pardon shows "that if you have a concentrated base of people around Trump, you have a very good chance at a pardon," said Dan Richman, a former federal prosecutor who teaches at Columbia Law School.
48% : Last year, Trump and his staff also met with Bailey and other representatives of Bitcoin Magazine, who pushed for Ulbricht's release.
46% : Many of them have enjoyed an unusual level of access to Trump.
45% : But she was still in touch with the new administration last week and requested that Trump grant Ross Ulbricht a full pardon, not just a commutation.
43% : Then in late 2023, McArdle was contacted by Grenell, who asked on behalf of Trump for advice on courting the libertarian vote, she said.
39% : McArdle said she was put in contact with Trump by Richard Grenell, one of his longtime advisers and a former acting director of national intelligence, who suggested she treat conversations with Trump like a business negotiation.
37% : By then, Trump had already vowed to free Ross Ulbricht at the Libertarian Party convention.
32% : After he lost the 2020 election, Trump considered freeing Ross Ulbricht, and at least one lobbyist was paid $22,500 to help secure his release, according to financial forms.
29% : But Trump left office without taking action.
22% : McArdle has faced blowback from other libertarians for her dealings with Trump.
18% : At the meeting, McArdle told Trump that Ulbricht was the victim of prosecutorial overreach and a biased criminal justice system, echoing complaints that the former president had made since leaving office.

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