By Karina Tsui, Michael Williams, Marshall Cohen, CNN
US President Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani in 2024 Photo: ADAM GRAY
President Donald Trump has pardoned a long list of his political allies for their support or involvement in plans to overturn the 2020 presidential election, according to the Department of Justice's Pardon Attorney, Ed Martin.
The individuals listed in a proclamation, which Martin posted on X late Sunday, include high-profile figures like former Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell and the president's former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, among dozens of others.
"This proclamation ends a grave national injustice perpetrated upon the American people following the 2020 Presidential Election and continues the process of national reconciliation," read the document, which gives the date of November 7 in its text and the president appears to have signed.
It includes a "full, complete, and unconditional pardon" for those named, including some of the president's co-defendants who were charged in Georgia for trying to subvert Trump's 2020 election defeat.
The pardons mark the latest step Trump has taken to absolve or protect his allies who tried to overturn the 2020 election. Those efforts culminated in the violent riot at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. One of his first official acts in his second term was to pardon over 1,000 people who were charged or convicted in the January 6 attack.
Presidential pardons only apply to federal charges, not state or local charges. None of the people on the list are currently charged with federal crimes, though some were named as unindicted co-conspirators in special counsel Jack Smith's election subversion case against Trump, which prosecutors withdrew after Trump's 2024 election victory.
However, state-level criminal charges are still pending against Giuliani, Meadows, many of the 2020 fake electors, and others on the pardon list. (They deny wrongdoing.) These 2020-related state prosecutions are ongoing in Wisconsin, Arizona and Nevada. These figures will likely try to use the pardon to aid their defense, though a presidential pardon doesn't cover state crimes.
The pardon also explicitly states that it does not apply to Trump.
Rudy Giuliani Photo: AP Photo / Jose Luis Magana
The pardon covers Jeffrey Clark, a top Justice Department official in 2020 who tried to weaponize the department's powers to overturn the election. (Clark is now a senior official at the Office of Management and Budget.) Like Giuliani and Powell, Clark was an unindicted co-conspirator in the federal 2020-related indictment against Trump, CNN previously reported.
Clark said in an X post Monday that Trump had called him on Friday to inform him about the pardon. He said that he never asked for a pardon, defended his actions in 2020, and thanked Trump. But he also acknowledged the limits of clemency action.
"I wish I could be declaring this legal nonsense over for good - a pardon should totally and abruptly kill off these federal bar and Georgia-federal attacks on me and many others," Clark wrote. "Sadly, that's not immediate reality."
Powell and Giuliani, both of whom served as Trump's personal lawyers, were at the center of the sprawling conspiracy theories which baselessly claimed the 2020 election had been stolen from Trump. Giuliani played a leading role in the "fake electors" scheme which sought to block then-President-elect Joe Biden from taking office by presenting certificates from battleground states which falsely said Trump won the election, during the Congressional counting of the electoral votes on January 6, 2021.
Giuliani spokesperson Ted Goodman said in a statement that the former New York City mayor "stands by his work following the 2020 presidential election," adding that he "never sought a pardon but is deeply grateful for President Trump's decision."
Two of the architects of the fake electors scheme - lawyers Ken Chesebro and John Eastman - were also pardoned. Chesebro previously pleaded guilty in the Georgia election racketeering indictment.
Also pardoned were Jenna Ellis, Trump's 2020 campaign lawyer, and former Arizona GOP Chair Kelli Ward and her husband, Michael Ward.
Sidney Powell Photo: AFP
Ellis had been accused of working to spread false claims about widespread voter fraud. She pleaded guilty in the Georgia case and struck a cooperation deal that led to her Arizona charges being dropped. The Wards were accused of acting as fake electors in Arizona. Also pardoned was Boris Epshteyn, a Trump campaign lawyer who prosecutors alleged helped organized the scheme and later served as one of Trump's personal lawyer during his New York criminal trial in 2024.
In a statement to CNN, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt praised the people Trump pardoned as "great Americans."
"These great Americans were persecuted and put through hell by the Biden Administration for challenging an election, which is the cornerstone of democracy," Leavitt said. "Getting prosecuted for challenging results is something that happens in communist Venezuela, not the United States of America, and President Trump is putting an end to the Biden Regime's communist tactics once and for all."
CNN has reached out to Martin's office for comment.
Also last week, the president granted clemency to a retired New York City police officer who was convicted in 2023 for stalking a New Jersey family on behalf of the Chinese government.
Trump also pardoned former Major League Baseball star Darryl Strawberry for a 1995 tax evasion charge.
- CNN
