Trump’s Possible Next Pardon Comes Into View as MAHA World Rallies Around Medical Fraudster Elizabeth Holmes
The convicted medical testing guru is a ‘perfect martyr’ for Big Pharma skeptics, observers of the MAHA movement say.

As President Trump continues to offer pardons and commutations, a high-profile fraudster being embraced by some of the biggest names in the MAHA world, former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes, is being eyed as a possible future recipient of the president’s largesse.
Holmes is serving a more than 11 year sentence in federal prison for duping investors in the failed medical startup that promised to revolutionize blood testing.
Her company claimed to have developed a medical device that could detect a multitude of diseases and conditions from a few drops of blood. But the company ended up using test equipment from other companies to run many of the tests because its technology produced wildly unreliable results.
“I regret my failings with every cell of my body,” Holmes said at her 2022 sentencing. More recently, however, she has claimed her technology worked, and attempted to have her conviction overturned. A federal appeals court denied her request.
Politico published an article this week claiming that the MAHA community led by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had embraced her cause. It cited a recent Substack post by MAHA influencer Jessica Reed Kraus that was sympathetic to Holmes, calling her a “deeply misunderstood character.”
Some in the MAHA community believe Holmes is a victim of Big Pharma and was targeted by conglomerates because her machine was a threat to entrenched testing systems.
A pathologist and assistant professor at Johns Hopkins, Benjamin Mazer, was quoted in the article about the common strands between Holmes and MAHA.
“She was very big in positioning herself as an anti-establishment figure,” Mr. Mazer said. “The large lab companies were the bad guys, and then she’s the outsider, a small player who is going to overtake the establishment. That fits in with [MAHA].”
A Stanford historian who is writing a book about the MAHA movement told Politico that Holmes could be considered a hero to people who believe in conspiracy theories about the health care system. “She’s such a perfect martyr for this. It feels almost inevitable that this would happen,” Kathryn Olivarius says. “There’s something in her story for everyone in this movement.”
Holmes’s X account has become active again in recent months. Her bio says, “Mostly my words, posted by others,” indicating she is dictating posts to someone outside the prison where she is housed, but lists Bryan Federal Prison Camp in Texas as her location.
In response to the article, Holmes posted, “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,” Holmes added.
Holmes has not formally asked for a pardon but she has been supportive of positions taken by MAGA supporters in recent X posts. On Wednesday she blamed Covid lockdowns for a decline in academic performance. Earlier in the month, she noted that Mr. Trump had helped Dilbert creator Scott Adams get access to life saving treatment and called him the “Best President Ever.”
Last month, Holmes wrote a positive message to George Santos after he was pardoned by Mr. Trump. More recently she praised Mr. Kennedy.
Using social media is a tactic Silk road founder Ross Ulbricht used before Mr. Trump pardoned him shortly after returning to the White House.
Mr. Trump has not commented on Holmes and the White House has said it does not comment on potential pardons. Prediction market Polymarket thinks there is enough of a chance that Holmes could be pardoned that users have wagered more than $100,000 on the possibility.
The site has the odds of Holmes getting a pardon currently listed at four percent. Steve Bannon is listed as having the highest chance of a pardon, at 17 percent.
