#43AMERICANS
No lobbyists.
No connections.
Just the record.
Nurses, doctors, veterans, engineers, software developers, small business owners, public servants, parents. One of us was never charged with anything and lost nearly $900,000 to forfeiture. One was acquitted before the jury finished deliberating, having already spent everything he owned on his defense. Twelve are in prison tonight. The verdicts differ. The cost did not.
Some of us you will have heard of, and some of those stories you will not like. That is the point. The machinery that did this does not check whether you are sympathetic before it starts, and neither should the review we are asking for.
Every case is documented and open for anyone to review.
Four dates that have not happened yet.
Everything else on this site already happened. These have not.
- Chris Mazzei 20 Aug 2026
- Michael Castillero 9 Sep 2026
- Brian Martinsen 9 Sep 2026
- Dr. Ron Elfenbein 11 Jan 2027
Erin Mazzei came home a few weeks ago after roughly two years. Her husband reports on the twentieth. Their children have not had both parents at once.
Read their casesPart one
The government has already said these prosecutions went wrong.
Not us. It.
- 7 April 2025 The Deputy Attorney General issued a memorandum titled “Ending Regulation by Prosecution,” directing federal prosecutors not to charge unlicensed money transmitting in digital-asset cases. Four months later Roman Storm was convicted of exactly that. He faces retrial.1
- Charges dismissed mid-trial The Attorney General ordered all charges against Dr. Kirk Moore dismissed while his trial was under way.
- Dismissed with prejudice Armed U.S. Marshals were sent to Dr. Eithan Haim’s home. The Justice Department later dropped every charge, permanently.
- Two full pardons Jeremy Hutchinson, May 2025. Mike McMahon — a retired NYPD sergeant who was at the towers on 11 September — November 2025. The Second Circuit vacated McMahon’s conviction the following year.2
Four of the forty-three. Each one an official act, on the record.
And not one of them got their years back, their savings back, or their name back. Winning is not the same as being made whole.
Part two
When the courts are the problem, there is no one left to ask.
This is not a claim about one bad judge. It is how the machinery is built — and the government has documented it itself.
- The office that reviews prosecutors, by its own numbers The Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility processed 397 matters in fiscal year 2022 and made 14 findings of professional misconduct — roughly one in twenty-eight. Its reports do not name the attorneys involved.3 The Government Accountability Office found the Department could not confirm that attorneys found to have committed misconduct actually served the discipline imposed.4
- A federal judge said it plainly At a hearing on 18 November 2025, a federal district judge asked the government why a case had sat for six years while comparable cases were charged. Counsel answered that it was not as strong as the others. The Court replied: “No, I think it has to be said. That’s the whole point.” The government had separately argued in writing that it may select a defendant based in part on the deterrent effect on others. That argument is lawful. No court reached the question.5
- Their errors are harmless. Ours are not. On 31 July 2026 a federal appeals court found that a trial judge gave the government forty minutes for closing argument and the defendant thirty — reasoning the court rejected — and told the jury a defendant must prove good faith, which is the opposite of the law. Both errors: harmless. She is serving twenty years. When a defendant misleads a court, that is an obstruction enhancement and additional years.6
- Eleven weeks On 18 May 2026 the Attorney General established a $1.776 billion fund to compensate people harmed by prosecutorial overreach. On 2 August 2026 the order was rescinded — the rescission states that there is no fund. What remains is gated at thresholds almost no one clears: the Hyde Amendment requires a showing that the prosecution was vexatious or in bad faith, and compensation for unjust conviction requires a court-issued certificate of innocence.7
Every review available to us happens inside the institution being reviewed, by people who report to it, under standards the Department itself cannot confirm were enforced.
A system cannot be the judge of its own conduct. That is why we are asking someone outside it to look.
Part three
The pardon is the story. The case never is.
Every act of clemency is covered. Almost none of the cases behind them are.
What gets written about
- Who received a pardon
- Who they know
- Whether the grant looks improper
What does not
- A federal court finding a judge gave the government more argument time than the defendant and misstated the burden of proof to the jury — both forgiven.
- Nearly $900,000 seized from a family through civil forfeiture with no criminal charge ever filed.
- A man acquitted before the jury finished deliberating, in a state he had never entered, who had already spent everything he owned.
- A Justice Department case page that still lists charges dismissed before trial, still offers the thrown-out indictment for download, and still solicits victim impact statements — updated two and a half months after the case ended.8
If granting clemency reliably produces a week of bad coverage and never granting it produces none, the power goes unused. The people who pay for that are the ones who were never going to have a lobbyist.
Clemency has never been a finding of innocence. Nobody believes President Truman concluded that 41% of petitioners were innocent. It is the constitutional power to fix a sentence that does not match what a person did, or a process that went wrong in a way the courts will not correct.
We are not asking for mercy. Mercy assumes the process was right. We are asking for justice — that someone outside this system look at what was done to us, investigate it, and provide whatever relief the record warrants.
- U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Deputy Attorney General, “Ending Regulation by Prosecution,” 7 April 2025.
- U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Pardon Attorney, Clemency Grants by President Donald J. Trump (2025–Present). justice.gov/pardon
- U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Professional Responsibility, Annual Report, fiscal year 2022. justice.gov/opr
- U.S. Government Accountability Office, GAO-15-156, Professional Misconduct: DOJ Could Strengthen Procedures for Disciplining Its Attorneys. Report (PDF)
- Transcript of hearing, 18 November 2025, United States v. Angelica Pacheco, S.D. Fla. Documents and full context at Case 43.
- United States v. Elizabeth Hernandez, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, 31 July 2026. Full opinion (PDF)
- U.S. Department of Justice, “Justice Department Announces Anti-Weaponization Fund,” 18 May 2026. justice.gov/opa · NBC News, “Acting AG Todd Blanche reaches deal with holdout senators to end $1.8B anti-weaponization fund,” 2 August 2026. nbcnews.com
- U.S. Department of Justice, Criminal Division case page, United States v. Angelica Pacheco. Captured 8 August 2026. See Case 43.
- Office of the Pardon Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice, clemency statistics compiled by Pew Research Center, 7 February 2025. Pew Research Center analysis
#43AMERICANS
Forty-three people
Twelve are in a cell tonight. Three report to custody this autumn. Eleven were charged and later cleared, and it cost them everything anyway. Every square is a documented federal case. Pick any one.
