This local GOP hitman helped free an online drug ‘kingpin’ from prison

Brian Anderson doesn’t look like a political assassin.

He’s genial and bespectacled, with fake diamond stud earrings and tousled black hair. Both arms sport tattoos — one a quote from “The Great Gatsby," another a cat riding a skateboard. Despite the meek appearance, the 34-year-old has helped kneecap opponents of conservative law-and-order Republicans like Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell and former Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey.

Given Anderson’s rule-of-law client base, it seems unlikely that he'd work his ass off to free a drug trafficker from prison. But that’s exactly what Anderson did, helping to secure a presidential pardon for notorious online drug “kingpin” Ross Ulbricht earlier this year.

In 2015, Ulbricht was convicted of seven counts of drug trafficking, conspiracy and money-laundering charges for being the mastermind behind the dark web drug bazaar Silk Road. The site was a shopping hub for a cornucopia of illicit substances and services, from black tar heroin and high-grade crystal meth to computer hacking and fake passports. Transactions were made anonymously through the Tor web browser and paid for with bitcoin.

Federal authorities took down the site in 2013 and arrested Ulbricht, alleging that the former Eagle Scout operated Silk Road under the pseudonym "Dread Pirate Roberts" — a reference to the 1987 film "The Princess Bride" — and took a cut of the site's more than $200 million in sales. Prosecutors claimed Ulbricht also paid for hits on his associates, though he was never tried on such charges.

Ulbricht caught a double-life sentence, plus 40 years for good measure. His case became a cause célèbre among an odd coalition of libertarians, war-on-drugs opponents, sentencing reform advocates and even some self-described "paleoconservative" Republicans. The last describes Anderson.

The former Ducey press aide is the sole proprietor of the Saguaro Group, a local opposition research firm. Anderson said he used to be “very libertarian, anarchist, no government” while a pre-med student at Arizona State University, though he has since “calmed down” politically. Ulbricht’s case harked back to those libertarian roots, when a speech by former Republican congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul activated Anderson politically.

Anderson doesn’t believe in drug legalization — he describes himself as “pro-prosecutor” — though he knows many of Ulbricht’s supporters do. But he abhors excessive sentencing, such as in the case of Alice Johnson. A grandmother, Johnson was 21 years into a lifetime sentence for cocaine trafficking when Donald Trump gave her a commutation during his first presidency.

"It gets back to picturing this person dying in prison alone," Anderson said. "I don't think anyone looks at Alice Johnson and says that is a good thing."

A grassroots approach

Moved by Johnson's case, Anderson wondered if there was "something meaningful I could do” to use his campaign research skills. He thought about Ulbricht because, in his libertarian days, he knew about Silk Road and empathized with what he saw then as an idealistic attempt to take "the violence out of the drug trade."

In 2018, Anderson reached out to Ulbricht's attorney, who connected him with Lyn Ulbricht, the convict's mother and primary advocate. Once the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review Ulbricht's case, Ulbricht’s only route to freedom was a presidential pardon. Anderson, who worked early in his career with Koch brothers-backed Freedom Partners, suggested a non-traditional, grassroots approach.

He put together a 25-page binder titled "Clemency for Ross Ulbricht," which painted a dim picture of the government's prosecution. Mirroring Ulbricht's defense at trial, the booklet contended that Ulbricht created the prototype for Silk Road in 2011 and then turned administration of the site over to others who used the Dread Pirate Roberts pseudonym. It pointed to evidence that the moniker was shared, including evidence that someone logged into the account after Ulbricht was in federal custody.

The meticulously footnoted booklet also countered the government's murder-for-hire allegations. Prosecutors contended that Ulbricht-as-Dread Pirate Roberts doled out $730,000 for hits on six people, though the government did not believe any murders actually occurred. Ulbricht was charged in only one murder, separately from the drug trafficking case. That murder charge was later dismissed with prejudice, meaning it cannot be refiled.

Critics of the prosecution say the alleged hits were red herrings, meant to taint the case against Ulbricht. One alleged target — Curtis Green, a Silk Road administrator who cooperated with the feds and helped fake his own death as part of a hitman sting against Dread Pirate Roberts — has stated that he doesn't believe Ulbricht put out a hit on him, claiming that various individuals had access to the Dread Pirate Roberts account, including a government agent.

Anderson's booklet also noted that Ulbricht’s jury was never allowed to hear about two corrupt agents from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the U.S. Secret Service who were part of the Silk Road probe and who swiped thousands of bitcoins from the site, even as they were helping to fake Green's death.

Then there was the disparity between Ulbricht's sentence and that given to non-digital drug lords, who catch anywhere from 15 to 25 years behind bars. It all made for a powerful argument for mercy, one that Lyn Ulbricht distributed at the libertarian conclaves where she spoke. For politicians and other interested observers, Anderson produced more detailed addendums on the corrupt agents and the murder-for-hire allegations.

"Lyn was the diplomatic one," Anderson said. "She was the one going to conferences all the time, meeting people, forging relationships with people who could support Ross."

The Donald comes through

The campaign attracted high-profile supporters, including Sen. Rand Paul, Professor Noam Chomsky, Donald Trump Jr. and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. A change.org petition for clemency promoted on the Ulbricht family's official site, FreeRoss.org, drew more than 600,000 signatures.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Trump was prepared to pardon Ulbricht just before leaving office in 2021, but the deal fell apart in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 insurrection. While campaigning in 2024, Trump stumped at the Libertarian National Convention, promising to commute Ulbricht's sentence on the first day of his presidency in return for their support.

The Libertarian Party was receptive. According to the libertarian site Reason, then-Libertarian Party Chair Angela McArdle chose to commit resources behind the libertarian presidential candidate only in "noncompetitive states favoring the Democrats," which assisted Trump's win in battleground states.

On Jan. 21, Trump held up his end of the bargain — albeit on the second day of his presidency, not the first — announcing on Truth Social that he was issuing "a full and unconditional pardon" of Ulbricht.

"The scum that worked to convict him were some of the same lunatics who were involved in the modern day weaponization of government against me," Trump wrote. "He was given two life sentences, plus 40 years. Ridiculous!"

Elated, Anderson took to X, posting a photo of himself visiting Ulbricht in prison, arm-in-arm with the outlaw and Ulbricht's mom. "Thank you President Trump for keeping your promise,” Anderson wrote. “There are no words to explain how happy I feel at this moment. Welcome home friend.”

Anderson’s work to free Ulbricht has both “impressed and horrified” the traditional, tough-on-crime Republicans with whom he works. "One of the prosecutor people I work for just sent me a message calling me George Soros," he said, referring to the liberal billionaire bugbear of Republicans everywhere. "Which is funny because it's one of the big lines I use against Democrats."

Anderson’s advocacy for Ulbricht may be at odds with much of his GOP clientele, but he doesn't think it will cost him any business. His longstanding relationships with them are too strong, and after all, the leader of their party is the guy who doled out the pardon. Still, he anticipates that Democrats will use it against him somehow, especially because he can be "loud and obnoxious" on X.

"It's very possible," he said. "But that's a small price to pay. And since I do that to people for a living, it's a very specific form of karma."