Hedge fund manager Dan Loeb has disclosed that the U.S. Department of Justice warned President Trump it would take legal action against him personally if he commuted Ross Ulbricht's sentence during the final hours of his first term in office. According to Loeb, the threat was credible enough to delay any relief for the Silk Road founder at that time. Ulbricht ultimately received a full pardon in January 2025, at the start of Trump's second term. The revelation sheds new light on the political and legal pressures surrounding one of crypto's most prominent criminal cases, and raises questions about DOJ interference in executive clemency decisions. Ulbricht had been serving two life sentences without the possibility of parole since his 2015 conviction.
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