Trump pardons Giuliani, other figures in effort to overturn 2020 election, aide says

President Trump pardoned his former personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, and a slate of other key figures charged in connection with their efforts to overturn the 2020 election, according to a U.S. pardon attorney.

Ed Martin, the government’s pardon attorney, posted a proclamation late Sunday night that listed dozens of individuals granted pardons “for certain offenses related to the 2020 presidential election.”

“This proclamation ends a grave national injustice perpetrated upon the American people following the 2020 Presidential Election and continues the process of national reconciliation,” the proclamation reads.

The list includes several high-profile individuals connected to the effort to overturn the 2020 election: Mark Meadows, Sidney Powell, Kenneth Chesebro, Jeffrey Clark, John Eastman, Jenna Ellis, Boris Epshteyn and others.

The pardon specifies that it “does not apply to the President of the United States, Donald J. Trump.”

The text indicates that the pardon, which is limited to federal offenses, was signed on Nov. 7.

Presidential pardons apply only to federal crimes, and Trump’s allies were never charged in federal court. Trump previously pardoned hundreds of supporters charged in connection to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, including those who attacked law enforcement that day. 

Prosecutors in Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin and Nevada have filed criminal charges against many of the pardoned individuals related to the so-called “fake electors” scheme, in which individuals signed a document falsely claiming Trump won the state’s 2020 presidential race.

Giuliani was disbarred from practicing law in New York State and the District of Columbia for making numerous false claims related to the 2020 presidential election. 

Giuliani and Powell were two of Trump’s attorneys who promoted baseless conspiracy theories about election fraud in the aftermath of 2020, and Eastman helped concoct the fake electors’ scheme, which aimed to keep the president in office.

Trump faced a federal indictment on charges related to his effort to stay in power after losing the 2020 election, but special counsel Jack Smith moved to toss the case after the president was elected to his second term.

Giuliani, Powell, Clark and Eastman were alleged co-conspirators in that federal case but were never charged with a federal crime.

“These great Americans were persecuted and put through hell by the Biden Administration for challenging an election, which is the cornerstone of democracy,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement to The Hill.

"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,” she continued.

Updated at 8:12 a.m. EST