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US President Donald Trump has pardoned scores of his political allies accused of having tried to overturn the results of the 2020 election following Democrat Joe Biden's victory. Trump's former lawyer Rudy Giuliani was among the list of more than 70 people named.
Issued on: 10/11/2025
By: FRANCE 24
Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani photographed during a ceremony commemorating the anniversary of the 9-11 terror attacks in New York, Thursday, September 11, 2025. © Seth Wenig, AP
US President Donald Trump has granted sweeping pardons to top allies accused of attempting to subvert the 2020 election, the administration's pardon attorney Ed Martin said Sunday.
Martin shared a list on X of more than 70 people, including the president's former lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, and Trump's former chief of staff Mark Meadows, who were granted "full, complete and unconditional" pardons.
Giuliani, a former New York City mayor, was one of the most vocal supporters of Trump's unsubstantiated claims of large-scale voter fraud after the 2020 election.
He has since been disbarred in Washington, DC, and New York over his advocacy of Trump's bogus election claims and lost a $148 million defamation case brought by two former Georgia election workers whose lives were upended by conspiracy theories he pushed.
The names on the list were embroiled in a scheme to alter slates of electors in battleground states, including Arizona, Georgia and Michigan, which Joe Biden had secured in his successful 2020 presidential run.
That plot, supported by Trump and his allies, helped fuel a demonstration that turned into a rioting mob attacking the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Presidential pardons apply only to federal crimes, and none of the Trump allies named were charged in federal cases over the 2020 election. But the move underscores Trump's continued efforts to promote the idea that the 2020 election was stolen from him even though courts around the country and US officials found no evidence of fraud that could have affected the outcome.
The directive could prevent future administrations from prosecuting the alleged co-conspirators.
The names also include John Eastman, a lawyer who proposed strategies to prevent the certification of the election results, and longtime Trump advisor Boris Epshteyn.
Also pardoned were Republicans who acted as fake electors for Trump in 2020 and were charged in state cases of submitting false certificates that confirmed they were legitimate electors despite Biden's victory in those states. Another key figure on the list is Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department official who championed Trump's efforts to challenge his election loss.
The directive follows the sweeping pardons of the hundreds of Trump supporters charged in the January 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol, including those convicted of attacking law enforcement.
Trump has long insisted he has the power to pardon himself for federal crimes, but he has yet put the theory to the test.
In the missive granting pardons for actions "in connection with the 2020 Presidential Election" or relating to "efforts to expose voting fraud", Trump said that "this pardon does not apply to the President of the United States".
Trump himself was indicted on felony charges accusing him of working overturn his 2020 election defeat, but the case brought by Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith was abandoned in November after Trump's victory over Democrat Kamala Harris because of the department's policy against prosecuting sitting presidents.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP and AP)
US President Donald Trump has granted sweeping pardons to top allies accused of attempting to subvert the 2020 election, the administration's pardon attorney Ed Martin said Sunday.
Martin shared a list on X of more than 70 people, including the president's former lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, and Trump's former chief of staff Mark Meadows, who were granted "full, complete and unconditional" pardons.
Giuliani, a former New York City mayor, was one of the most vocal supporters of Trump's unsubstantiated claims of large-scale voter fraud after the 2020 election.
He has since been disbarred in Washington, DC, and New York over his advocacy of Trump's bogus election claims and lost a $148 million defamation case brought by two former Georgia election workers whose lives were upended by conspiracy theories he pushed.
The names on the list were embroiled in a scheme to alter slates of electors in battleground states, including Arizona, Georgia and Michigan, which Joe Biden had secured in his successful 2020 presidential run.
That plot, supported by Trump and his allies, helped fuel a demonstration that turned into a rioting mob attacking the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Presidential pardons apply only to federal crimes, and none of the Trump allies named were charged in federal cases over the 2020 election. But the move underscores Trump's continued efforts to promote the idea that the 2020 election was stolen from him even though courts around the country and US officials found no evidence of fraud that could have affected the outcome.
The directive could prevent future administrations from prosecuting the alleged co-conspirators.
The names also include John Eastman, a lawyer who proposed strategies to prevent the certification of the election results, and longtime Trump advisor Boris Epshteyn.
Also pardoned were Republicans who acted as fake electors for Trump in 2020 and were charged in state cases of submitting false certificates that confirmed they were legitimate electors despite Biden's victory in those states. Another key figure on the list is Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department official who championed Trump's efforts to challenge his election loss.
The directive follows the sweeping pardons of the hundreds of Trump supporters charged in the January 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol, including those convicted of attacking law enforcement.
Trump has long insisted he has the power to pardon himself for federal crimes, but he has yet put the theory to the test.
In the missive granting pardons for actions "in connection with the 2020 Presidential Election" or relating to "efforts to expose voting fraud", Trump said that "this pardon does not apply to the President of the United States".
Trump himself was indicted on felony charges accusing him of working overturn his 2020 election defeat, but the case brought by Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith was abandoned in November after Trump's victory over Democrat Kamala Harris because of the department's policy against prosecuting sitting presidents.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP and AP)
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