For years, President Donald Trump complained that his predecessor had weaponized the judicial system against him on what he claimed were trumped-up charges, including election interference, mishandling classified documents, hush-money payments, and fraudulent tax and property dealings.
Now that the shoe is on the other foot, the president seems wholly uninterested in stopping the very weaponization he once railed against.
This week, Keonne Rodriguez, the co-creator of the bitcoin privacy wallet Samourai, was sentenced to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine—the maximum sentence under the charge for which he pleaded guilty earlier this year. "In July, Rodriguez and his cofounder William Hill plead[ed] guilty [to] the known transmission of illicit proceeds," @The Rage reported on Thursday.
Earlier this year, the Trump administration publicly stated that it would cease prosecuting developers for writing code. In the months since, several bitcoin services that had shut off access for Americans in fear of legal repercussions have returned. The White House proclaims America to be the "crypto capital of the world," adding the laughably incoherent statement that "all the remaining Bitcoin [will] be made in the USA."
It's time for the Trump administration to get its legal house in order—that should start with a pardon for Rodriguez.
Reason.com
Trump vowed to stop crypto crackdowns. Samourai Wallet proves he hasn’t.
If fairness in the justice system depends on wealth or political value, we’ve missed the point of justice entirely.
