If Trump Really Wanted to Fight the Deep State, He’d Pardon These 5 Heroes Instead of Criminals

 President Trump has recently used his power of pardon to absolve a  number of high profile individuals from criminal charges because they  may have been treated unfairly by the justice system. Last month, Trump  posthumously pardoned the great African-American boxer Jack Johnson, who  was falsely imprisoned for traveling with a white woman. While this was  a nice symbolic gesture, it did not do much aside from creating a PR  opportunity for the Trump administration. 

Most recently Trump pardoned the controversial conservative  commentator Dinesh D’Souza, who was accused of and confessed to campaign  finance violations. Trump has also suggested pardoning Martha Stewart,  who was arrested years ago for insider trading but is not currently in  jail, as well as Rod Blagojevich who was impeached and then charged for  corruption and soliciting bribes. Meanwhile, there are many people sitting behind bars or in exile  because they fought for freedom and were punished as a result. If Trump  really wanted to fight the deep state—as his followers insist—then he  would use his legal power to pardon the following political prisoners: 

Ross Ulbricht

Ross Ulbricht is currently serving a double life sentence  for operating a website. Before Bitcoin became the newest tech and  investment craze, it was seen as the currency of the black market which  was used to buy and sell drugs on the infamous “dark web.” In fact,  Ulbricht was one of the early adopters of Bitcoin and he created one of  the first websites that popularized the cryptocurrency, called The Silk  Road. The Silk Road was an anonymous online marketplace that became a  target for politicians and law enforcement because of the large volume  of drugs that were being sold through the site. On the Silk Road, drug  users and vendors were able to trade anonymously using Bitcoin, making  it one of the first major commerce platforms to adopt the  cryptocurrency. 

Even though Ulbricht did nothing but create a website—just like the  famous billionaires Mark Zuckerberg or Jeff Bezos—he was treated like El  Chapo in court because his invention worked against the system, instead  of for it. One important point that was heavily overlooked by the media during  the Ulbricht trial was the fact that the Silk Road actually made the  world a safer place by undermining prohibition. Even though drugs are  illegal, large numbers of people still use them on a regular basis and  these people are often put into dangerous situations because of these  prohibitions. 

The Silk Road allowed people to purchase drugs from the comfort of  their living room to avoid the risk of getting mugged in a dark  alleyway. It also allowed them to read reviews of the products that  their potential dealer was selling, saving them from tainted drugs and  dirty batches that could put their lives at risk.

 Ulbricht should have gotten the Nobel Prize for his visionary  application of a new and revolutionary technology, but instead, he was  arrested in October 2013 and has been sitting in federal prison ever  since, awaiting a break in his case, or the end of the drug war. www.freeross.org   

Leonard Peltier

Leonard Peltier is a Native American activist who has spent over 40  years in prison for a crime that he did not commit. Before his arrest,  Peltier was a well-known activist who was fighting back against attempts  made to take even more native land in the 1960s and 70s. Peltier was  involved with AIM, the American Indian Movement, a group of radical  Natives who had numerous armed standoffs with government agents to  protect their land. Peltier was blamed for the deaths of two FBI agents who got into a  shootout with unknown members of AIM when they were chasing down a young  man named Johnny Eagle for questioning about a local robbery. The  evidence against Peltier was flimsy, and in the many years since he was  convicted, witnesses have recounted their testimonies against him. 

The  entire case against him has fallen apart, and it was revealed in later  investigations that FBI ballistics experts at the time lied during the  trial about evidence tying the bullets that killed the agents to  Peltier’s gun. 

The U.S. Parole Commission denied Peltier parole in 1993 based on their finding that he “participated in the premeditated and cold-blooded execution of those two officers.” But, the Parole Commission has since stated that it “recognizes  that the prosecution has conceded the lack of any direct evidence that  Peltier personally participated in the executions of the two FBI  agents.” 

Near the end of the Clinton administration in 2001, it was rumored  that Bill Clinton was considering granting Peltier clemency. 

On just  this rumor, roughly 500 FBI agents and their families protested outside  of the White House to oppose freedom for Peltier despite the clear lack  of evidence against him. The Clinton administration never granted  Peltier clemency and made no additional public comments about the case.  Peltier then applied for a presidential pardon in 2016 and was denied by  Barack Obama on January 18, 2017. www.whoisleonardpeltier.info   

Jeremy Hammond

Jeremy Hammond is a hacktivist who was sentenced to spend a decade in  prison for hacking the private intelligence firm Stratfor and releasing  the leaks through the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks. According to WikiLeaks,  the e-mails date between July 2004 and December 2011. 

They reveal the  inner workings of a company that fronts as an intelligence publisher,  but provides confidential intelligence services to large corporations,  such as Bhopal’s Dow Chemical Co., Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman,  Raytheon and government agencies, including the US Department of  Homeland Security, the US Marines and the US Defence Intelligence  Agency. The emails show Stratfor’s web of informers, pay-off structure,  payment laundering techniques and psychological methods. 

The emails also expose the revolving door that operates in private  intelligence companies in the United States. Government and diplomatic  sources from around the world gave Stratfor advance knowledge of global  politics and events in exchange for money. 

Before going to prison, Hammond said in a statement, “Now that I  have pleaded guilty, it is a relief to be able to say that I did work  with Anonymous to hack Stratfor, among other websites. I did this  because I believe people have a right to know what governments and  corporations are doing behind closed doors. I did what I believe is  right.” 

Hammond is currently slated for release in February 2020. www.freejeremy.net   

Julian Assange

Julian Assange is the founder of the whistleblowing website  WikiLeaks, which became a source of international controversy in 2010  when the site published leaks provided by Chelsea Manning, which showed  horrific crimes on the part of the United States government in the  overseas wars. 

In the years since, Wikileaks has continued to publish  hard-hitting evidence exposing state corruption, such as the Stratfor  leak from Jeremey Hammond. Assange has spent years in exile at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London,  as various governments have attempted to pin charges on him to have him  extradited for trial and possible torture. 

Despite the fact that Trump spoke favorably about WikiLeaks while he  was on the campaign trail, his administration has been extremely hostile  towards the organization. While WikiLeaks may not appear to be a traditional journalism outlet,  there is no question that the service they provide—publishing  legitimate, accurate, and truthful information from sources—is exactly  what journalism was meant to be.   

Edward Snowden

Edward Snowden is an NSA whistleblower currently in exile in Russia because he proved many suspicions that so-called “conspiracy theorists”  have had for decades. As Snowden got deeper and deeper into U.S.  government’s network of intelligence agencies, thanks to his technical  ability, he became increasingly disturbed by the things that these  agencies were doing. 

Eventually, unable to take the guilt of being  involved with such organizations, Snowden took classified files from the  NSA and delivered them to multiple journalists. Snowden’s revelations showed that the US government is, in fact,  spying on every single American citizen, and some citizens and even  leaders of other countries as well. 

While the exposure of these programs did not force the government to  stop spying, it has made the average person more cautious about their  privacy and security, and has made some people stop and think twice  before calling someone a “conspiracy theorist.” 

Last year, more than 1 million people signed a petition demanding that former President Obama pardon Snowden, but the demands of the petition were never answered. “As you well know, Snowden disclosed information to journalists  revealing that the NSA had overstepped U.S. statutes, the Constitution,  and international law by engaging in widespread, warrantless  surveillance. In response, we’ve seen a global debate that has changed  government policies and profoundly affected how people think about  personal privacy,” wrote Anthony D. Romero, ACLU Executive Director;  Salil Shetty, Secretary General of Amnesty International; and HRW  Executive Director Kenneth Roth — after amassing 1,101,252 signatories from around the globe.