Donald Trump pardons Rudy Giuliani and others involved in efforts to overturn 2020 election

Rudy Giuliani arrives for a ceremony marking the 24th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Centre at the 9/11 Memorial and Museum in Manhattan. Reuters

US President Donald Trump has pardoned Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell and dozens of other allies accused of trying to overturn his 2020 election loss, a Justice Department official said on Monday.

The move is largely symbolic as it does not apply to any state charges.

Mr Trump, in a proclamation dated on Friday, said the move would end "a grave national injustice" and "continue the process of national reconciliation", according to a document posted on X by pardon lawyer Ed Martin, who oversees a Department of Justice group that was set up to investigate politically motivated cases.

The Justice Department had been investigating a plan by Mr Trump and his supporters to submit alternative state electors to reverse Joe Biden's victory in the November 2020 presidential election. Mr Trump won a second term, defeating Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 election.

However, none of the fake electors or Mr Trump’s lawyers were charged by federal prosecutors.

Mr Trump was indicted over the alleged plot to seek phony electors backing his false claims that he won in 2020, but the case was dismissed after last year's election when prosecutors quoted Justice Department policy against prosecuting a sitting president.

Several US states, including Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin and Nevada, also investigated the alleged electors scheme, with some filing charges, although criminal charges in Michigan were dismissed in September.

Mr Trump's latest pardons consists of 77 people but could include others not identified, the document said. Presidential pardons only apply to federal charges.

The list also includes Mark Meadows, Jeffrey Clark, Christina Bobb, John Eastman, Boris Epshteyn and Kenneth Chesebro, among others. The pardon does not apply to Mr Trump, according to the document on X.

White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt defended the latest pardons on Monday, saying that challenging an election "is the cornerstone of democracy".

Ted Goodman, a spokesman for Mr Giuliani, said the former mayor of New York “never sought a pardon but is deeply grateful for President Trump’s decision".

Mr Giuliani was one of the most vocal supporters of Mr Trump’s unsubstantiated claims of large-scale voter fraud after the 2020 election.

He has been disbarred in Washington and New York over his advocacy of Mr 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. Since pardons only absolve people from legal responsibility for federal crimes, they are unlikely to ease Mr Giuliani’s legal woes.