Former President Donald Trump said: “We are going to question all drug dealers and people who are arrested for drug trafficking.” explain In November 2022, as he launched his 2024 presidential campaign, he “sentenced the death penalty for their evil deeds.”
This promise was not said casually; it has become the core To Trump’s platform. Which makes one of his comments at the Liberal National Convention yesterday all the more interesting. “I will commute Ross Ulbricht’s sentence,” he explain, referring to the man’s two life sentences and 40 years in prison for multiple crimes, including drug distribution. Ulbricht’s legal troubles stemmed from an online marketplace he created and ran called Silk Road, where users could buy and sell illegal substances.
Ulbricht has long been on the radar of liberals, many of whom have long been convinced that his sentences were grossly disproportionate to his actual conduct. Judging from Trump’s words, the former president at least agreed that Ulbricht’s nearly 11 years in prison was enough punishment. This is hardly consistent with his view that “drug traffickers should be executed.”
The inconsistency here may be puzzling, but— reasonJacob Salem stressed last year – this is not new to his comments about Ulbricht. While in office, Trump commuted the sentence of Alice Marie Johnson, who was serving a life sentence without parole for her role in a cocaine conspiracy. He widely touted the measure (rightly so) as a sign of his more cerebral approach to criminal justice.
Soon after, Trump signed a bill supports this narrative: The First Step Act, which reduced several mandatory minimum sentences and added “good time” points, among other modest provisions. It remains one of the more enduring and effective parts of Trump’s legacy, especially given Very low recidivism rate For those released under the law.
Now, it appears that Trump will allegedly pursue policies that will result in the murder of many of the same beneficiaries. That includes not just Johnson, but most of the people freed by the First Step Act, most Among them, he is serving a sentence for drug trafficking. That almost certainly includes Ulbricht, one of the most famous drug offenders on the planet.
Trump also tried to achieve this balance during his time in the White House. “We have to get tough on these people. We can have all the blue ribbon commissions we want, but if we don’t get tough on drug dealers, we’re wasting our time. That tough approach includes the death penalty,” he said explain——In 2018, the same year he commuted Johnson’s sentence and signed the First Step Act.
The former president’s anti-drug crusade rhetoric may be another part of the flamboyant showmanship that has become one of his signature traits. Whether his Ulbricht pledge is another factor in it, just the other side of the coin, is unclear — though one potentially instructive fact is that Trump has four years to sign such a clemency grant , but he chose not to.
