President Trump has pardoned dozens of people who allegedly tried to overturn the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, including those who were named as alternative state electors to certify the results. Ed Martin, a Justice Department attorney whose focus is pardons, posted what appeared to be the pardons document on social media, which was later confirmed by the White House.
In addition to these so-called “false electors,” others granted pardons include former Trump personal lawyer and one-time close Trump adviser Rudy Giuliani and Mark Meadows, Mr. Trump’s chief of staff from March 2020 to January 2021. More than 70 people are named in the document as receiving pardons.
Electors are part of the 538-member Electoral College that officially elects presidents. In 48 states, they vote for the candidate who won a state’s popular vote; elector votes in Maine and Nebraska are awarded based on congressional district and statewide results.
The pardon document, dated Nov. 7, starts out by saying it “ends a grave national injustice perpetrated upon the American people following the 2020 Presidential Election and continues the process of national reconciliation.”
In a statement Monday morning, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said, “These great Americans were persecuted and put through hell by the Biden Administration for challenging an election, which is the cornerstone of democracy.”
The document also says the pardon doesn’t apply to Mr. Trump. That circumvents, at least for now, the issue of whether a president can pardon himself.
The attempt to appoint alternate electors formed a core part of a federal indictment against Mr. Trump that was abandoned by the Justice Department earlier this year shortly before he returned to the White House.
He was accused of participating in a scheme to interfere with the peaceful transfer of power after he lost the 2020 election. The federal indictment accused him and others of spreading “lies that there had been outcome-determinative fraud in the election and that he had actually won,” ultimately leading to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Mr. Trump denied wrongdoing.
Presidents can’t pardon people charged with state crimes.
Prosecutors in Nevada, Georgia, Wisconsin, Arizona and Michigan have filed charges related to the alleged false electors efforts. A judge in Michigan dismissed those charges in September, and many of the other cases have been held up by procedural and appellate days.
Giuliani became a close adviser to Mr. Trump during his first term and was accused of spreading conspiracy theories and other unfounded claims about Mr. Trump’s election loss.
Giuliani was disbarred in New York and Washington, D.C., for proliferating those claims, and he declared bankruptcy after being found liable for $148 million for spreading falsehoods about Georgia election workers.
He was also indicted in Arizona for allegedly spreading false claims that the the 2020 election there had been marred by fraud.
Meadows was a prominent figure in Mr. Trump’s attempts to stay in office after the November 2020 election.
A year ago, the Supreme Court turned away Meadows’ bid to move to federal court his prosecution in a Georgia case stemming from that alleged effort.
Others named in the pardon letter include former law professor John Eastman; Sidney Powell and Jenna Ellis, attorneys who promoted the claims; Kenneth Chesebro, who prosecutors said proposed the alternate elector plan in a memo to Mr. Trump; and longtime Trump adviser Boris Epshteyn.
Word of the latest Trump pardons first came from Politico senior legal affairs reporter Kyle Cheney, who cited Martin’s social media post.
