Ross Ulbricht's Pardon: Political Influences Explored (Full Transcript)

Speaker 1: Among more than 1,000 people pardoned or given reduced sentences is Ross Ulbricht, who founded the Silk Road. He was convicted of running the underground online marketplace that facilitated more than $200 million in illicit transactions using Bitcoin. Well, he was sentenced in 2015 to life in prison. Trump took to the social media platform Truth Social to explain his reasoning here, writing, 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. Let's bring in ABC News legal contributor Brian Buckmeyer for more on this. So first of all, Brian, I mean, what led exactly to his conviction and why do you think he's getting a bit of groundswell of support here led by, of course, President Trump?

Speaker 2: Yeah, well, with Ross Ulbricht, he was convicted for, in essence, having a criminal enterprise and that was one of the top charges that the federal government levied against him of creating a social media platform or website that allowed for the purchasing and sales of illicit drugs and services and trying to circumvent the current laws to sell drugs, basically. Something that's illegal. And I think a lot of the support that he's getting is based on his libertarian views and that many people in the libertarian circle kind of flock towards Donald Trump and this is one of his campaign promises with libertarians who are going to vote in a certain way that allowed for Trump to further in the ballot in some areas and also push back on Democrats in others. And so this is him making good on those promises. I think the support just comes from his political views in terms of why he believed a service like this should be allowed and should exist. And so that's why he's getting the pardon from now President Donald Trump.

Speaker 1: Right. Among those that support him at the top of the list are Elon Musk as well. So Brian, are executives for companies like Facebook, right, are they immune to prosecution for criminal activity that could occur on their platform?

Speaker 2: I wouldn't say they're immune from prosecution. They may be indirectly immune in terms of how they may be prosecuted with the new DOJ. But so long as they adhere to current federal guidelines and laws and they don't basically create a platform where illicit drugs and services can be purchased or sold to others like a marketplace or an underground black market as Silk Road was, I don't see them being prosecuted. But again, it depends on who is at the helm. I think this pardon of Ross Ulbricht now asks that question of, is this going to be illegal in the future? Does it depend on who you are or what political beliefs you may have? Or is it really about the prosecution? Because he did go to trial, was found guilty of a jury of his peers, but it appears that through whatever political or politics that occurred, that process has led us down to a pardon.

Speaker 1: All right. ABC News legal contributor Brian Buckmeyer, our thanks to you.