Donald Trump's November 9 pardon proclamation is legally weak.Luis M. Alvarez/AP
Donald Trump has reportedly pardoned high-profile attorneys accused of joining in his plot to try to steal the 2020 election, along with dozens of so-called fake electors alleged to have played small roles in the effort. The pardons were announced by Ed Martin, the president’s pardon attorney, who posted a proclamation by the president outlining them on X.
The pardons, which on Monday afternoon had not appeared on White House page listing Trump’s clemency grants, are symbolic. They are part of Trump’s larger effort to downplay his attempt to subvert the 2020 election and his responsibility for the January 6, 2021 attack on Congress. None of the people he pardoned Sunday—including lawyers Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, John Eastman, Jenna Ellis and Jeffrey Clark—face federal charges. But many on the list have been charged with state crimes related to the fake elector scheme. The president has broad clemency power over federal crimes, but has no authority over state charges.
Mother Jones first reported in June that Martin, who is himself a former “Stop the Steal” organizer and activist attorney for January 6 defendants, was working on a plan for Trump to pardon alleged fake electors. A person familiar with the pardon plan acknowledged at the time that such pardons would have no legal weight, though the source argued that attorneys for defendants might cite the presidential proclamation in court filings urging judges to dismiss fake elector cases.
Prosecutors in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin have charged so-called fake electors in those states with crimes including fraud. These are mostly small-time Republican activists who falsely asserted that they were legitimate electors, claims that were part of Trump’s push to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to reject the legitimate election results and accept pro-Trump slates of electors that could throw the election to him. The circumstances in each state differ, but generally, local prosecutors are struggling to persuade judges that the defendants broke the law by claiming to be legitimate electors. Many defendants may not welcome Trump’s legally worthless but politically charged attempt to intervene in their cases.
The Sunday pardons are part of a recent clemency spree by Trump. His latest pardons include former New York Mets star Darryl Strawberry and Changpeng Zhao, a Chinese-born founder of the cryptocurrency exchange Binance. Strawberry is one of various celebrities Trump has pardoned. Zhao is one of several Trump pardons that appear corrupt: Zhao, who pleaded guilty to US money laundering charges in 2023, paid Trump associates to lobby for his pardon, and Binance earlier this year cut a deal with Trump World Liberty Financial, a crypto company launched by Trump’s sons, that has helped to enrich the Trump family.
Martin served as interim US Attorney for the District of Columbia until his nomination to hold the job permanently failed in the Senate in May. He has since worked as Trump’s pardon adviser and head of a so-called weaponization task force in the Justice Department, efforts he has aggressively publicized. He has touted his role in federal prosecutions of New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey in statements that bolster widespread views that those cases are acts of political retribution.
Martin’s original plan for fake elector pardons went further than Trump did on Sunday. For example, Martin considered recommending that Trump pardon John F. Kennedy supporters who in 1960 signed paperwork saying they were Hawaii’s presidential electors when a recount left the actual winner of the state uncertain. Kennedy won Hawaii, and those electors were accepted as the state’s legitimate slate and never accused of crimes. Also, they are dead.
But pardoning them, the person familiar with the plan said, would have been a gesture aimed at boosting Trump supporters’ claims that 2020 fake electors did nothing wrong. The source did not explain why that part of the fake elector pardon plan did not move forward. But it may have been a step too far, even for Trump.
