Donald Trump issued a wave of pardons in his final 24 hours as president — but there were an array of controversial figures who missed out on a reprieve.
By the time his presidency ended, Edward Snowden, Julian Assange, and Ross Ulbricht had not found any relief for their legal woes. For Snowden, the former CIA analyst who leaked NSA documents detailing a wide array of domestic and foreign surveillance programs, that likely means he’ll stay in Russia for at least another four years.
“I am not at all disappointed to go unpardoned by a man who has never known a love he had not paid for,” Snowden tweeted on Wednesday morning. “But what supporters of his remain must never forgive that this simpering creature failed to pardon truth-tellers in far more desperate circumstances.”
Assange, whose supporters and partner Stella Morris lobbied the Trump administration for four years, will continue sitting in legal limbo as he faces a litany of federal charges related to his work with WikiLeaks that could land him in prison for decades should a U.K. judge ever grant his extradition. Sources familiar with the president’s thinking told the Washington Examiner that Trump always felt sympathy for Assange’s case but faced steep resistance from the White House Counsel’s office and Senate Republicans who warned that issuing a pardon could make them more likely to vote to convict him in his impeachment trial.
Celebrities such as Pamela Anderson and civil liberty groups from around the country have long argued that prosecuting Assange constitutes an assault on free speech and a grave threat to the rights of journalists. In an interview with the Washington Examiner on Tuesday, Morris expressed concern about Assange’s deteriorating health as he sits in a U.K. prison cell.
“But there is a deeper question about how much Big Tech companies have already merged with the domestic spying apparatus and the private surveillance industry,” she said, crediting Assange’s work with WikiLeaks as fueling the recent populist backlash against tech firms such as Twitter, Facebook, and Google. “Julian has long warned that the real threat are these unaccountable corporations.”
Assange’s mother, Christine Assange, tweeted early Wednesday morning that she was “not shocked” at Trump’s decision.
“Courage is not always contagious,” she wrote.
Of the three, only Ulbricht has been convicted by U.S. authorities and currently serves his double life sentence at a federal prison in Arizona. The harsh sentence for what his supporters call the nonviolent crime of running a dark web marketplace where users could purchase illicit goods ranging from heroin to stolen credit card information has turned him into a civil rights icon in the age of cryptocurrency and encryption technology.
The man who once went by “Dread Pirate Roberts” online found several allies within the top echelons of the Trump White House, and the former president himself, but resistance from those allied with the intelligence community ultimately means Ulbricht will remain in his prison cell for the time being.
Hip-hop artists such as Lil’ Wayne and Kodak Black were much more fortunate, and both received pardons in the early hours of the night on Wednesday. Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, another recipient of Trump’s last-minute pardons, will also avoid prison time for now following his indictment for defrauding donors to a southern border wall fundraising campaign.
Despite his newfound celebrity status following the release of the Netflix docuseries Tiger King, the man known as Joe Exotic, whose real name is Joseph Maldano-Passage, didn’t receive a pardon for his conviction in a failed murder-for-hire scheme against animal rights activist Carole Baskin.
Fans of the series believe Maldano-Passage was framed and never intended any harm against Baskin.
Trump commented in April that he would “look into” Maldano-Passage’s case. His attorneys remained confident that their client would ultimately receive a pardon, and Maldano-Passage even arranged for a limo to wait outside his prison on Tuesday to take him home.
