Elizabeth Holmes, founder of the fraudulent healthcare tech company Theranos, seems to be trying to get a presidential pardon from Donald Trump by playing up to his administration, experts have said.
In 2022, Holmes was convicted of four counts of felony fraud for raising hundreds of millions of dollars by lying to investors about the technology behind her healthcare startup, which claimed to be able to conduct hundreds of blood tests with just a single drop of blood drawn through a finger prick.
In criminal court, she was convicted of wire fraud totaling more than $140million, according to the Department of Justice. In civil court, she was charged with defrauding investors out of $700million by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
In 2016, in the midst of her legal battles, the convicted fraudster hosted a high-profile fundraiser for Hillary Clinton at Theranos's Palo Alto headquarters.
In August, Holmes began making pro-Trump and pro-MAHA posts on X. Before that, her profile had been inactive since 2015.
Back then, she would regularly praise successful and influential women, such as Rosa Parks, Marie Curie, Melinda Gates and Margaret Thatcher.
This year, in a political landscape vastly different from a decade ago, the fraudster seems to be trying to reshape her public image and appeal to a new crowd by making dozens of posts in support of Trump and the MAHA movement.
She has also been completely unrepentant and has consistently maintained her innocence.
Earlier this month, Holmes posted a tweet that said: 'Maybe my unwillingness to pretend is the clearest evidence of my innocence, the clearest evidence that I'm not the manipulative person the press has made me out to be.'
'If I was that person, I would fake an apology; I would admit fault for the hundred things I have been accused of.'
Also this month, she posted a Politico article about MAHA 'embracing' her, and wrote: 'I have been working to Make America Healthy Again since 2004.'
'I will continue to dedicate my life ahead to improving healthcare in this beautiful country I call home. I don't know if MAHA is embracing me but I support their cause, Healthier Americans.'
In October, she replied to a tweet about one of the Trump administration's attacks on a drug smuggling vessel - in that case a submarine - and wrote: 'How long until people claim it was a submersible fishing boat?'
In September, she replied to a tweet about President Trump and Elon Musk seen sitting next to each other after their public fallout earlier this year. 'Time to come together,' she wrote.
Bay Area public relations and crisis-control consultant Sam Singer reviewed those tweets and dozens of similar ones Holmes has posted this year.
This was the conclusion he shared with The Mercury News: 'Elizabeth Holmes is openly seeking a pardon from President Trump, hoping that by a combination of sucking up and perhaps digital fawning that she will get it.'
Holmes's approach could be seen as a Hail Mary attempt to be released early, as she lost an appeal earlier this year.
Holmes is currently held in the minimal-security prison, Federal Prison Camp, Bryan, in Texas.
'It's an interesting strategy,' Singer added. 'But I think it also plays right into the narrative about Elizabeth Holmes that she's a con woman.'
Holmes's approach could be seen as a Hail Mary attempt to be released from her Texas minimal-security prison, Federal Prison Camp, Bryan, as she lost an appeal earlier this year.
Her only options for release prior to December 30, 2031, are now a favorable decision from the Supreme Court in a final appeal, which experts say is unlikely, or a presidential pardon.
The potential strategy is not illogical. A page on the US Department of Justice website lists all 69 of Trump's second term pardons, and 19 of them went to people convicted of fraud.
Graham Dodds, a political science professor at Concordia University in Montreal who studies the US presidency, told the Mercury News that Trump has pardoned 'a lot of white collar criminals, a lot of people for fraud.'
'He's happy to pardon people who are politically simpatico,' Dodds added.
If Holmes's strategy works, none may be more upset than Rochelle Gibbons, the widow of Theranos's top scientist Ian Gibbons, who took his own life in 2013.
Rochelle blames Holmes for her husband's death, claiming that the strain of the faulty business and Holmes's constant lies made her husband depressed.
When Ian was deposed in 2013, that strain became too much, Rochelle said, as he feared that telling the truth could cause him to be fired or collapse the company, which was worth billions at the time.
He took an overdose of acetaminophen and died 8 days later, at age 67.
After Holmes was sentenced to prison, Rochelle said: 'Satisfaction in knowing she's going to suffer because, believe me, I've suffered and Ian suffered.'
'She has shown no remorse for any of the things she's done to anyone, nothing.'