President Donald Trump has pardoned Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell and dozens of other allies accused of trying to overturn his 2020 election loss, a U.S. Justice Department official said Monday, in a largely symbolic move that does not apply to any state office.
Trump, in a proclamation dated Friday, said the move would end “a grave national injustice” and “continue the process of national reconciliation,” according to a document published in
The Justice Department was investigating a plan by Trump and his supporters to introduce alternative slates of state electors to overturn President Joe Biden’s victory in the November 2020 presidential election. Trump won a second term, defeating Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 election.
However, none of the fake electors or Trump’s lawyers were charged by federal prosecutors.
The pardons include at least 77 people.
Trump was charged over the alleged conspiracy to find fake electors to support his false claims that he won in 2020, but the case was dismissed after last year’s election after prosecutors cited the Justice Department’s policy of not prosecuting a sitting president.
Several US states, including Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin and Nevada, also investigated the alleged voter tampering scheme, with some filing charges against multiple people, although criminal charges in Michigan were dismissed in September.
Trump’s pardons include 77 people, but could include unidentified others, according to the document. Presidential pardons only apply to federal charges and not state cases.
The list also includes Mark Meadows, Jeffrey Clark, Christina Bobb, John Eastman, Boris Epshteyn and Kenneth Chesebro, among others. The pardon does not apply to Trump, according to the document published in X.
White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt defended the latest pardons on Monday, saying that challenging an election “is the cornerstone of democracy.”
Several of Trump’s recent pardons were not officially announced by the White House at the time they occurred.
With information from Reuters.
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