If even the worst are untouchable, who will try to examine the good-looking ones?

Because much like the billionnaires already flanking Trump, the heads of Coinbase and A16Z are out-of-touch charisma black holes that have no clue how to talk to the average Trump voter to get them on their side. Ross Ulbricht is the avatar for their ultimate goal of legitimizing crypto in the US financial system.

Not sure, but when they have various political candidates getting millions from the crypto PACs and all of them in unison talking about how Ross Ulbricht needs a pardon, I'm not sure what else to tell you. Maybe someone just knew Ulbricht personally and is using their money to spring him.

But unless you can point to any other group with actual power and money who was pushing for it, the most obvious answer is that the main funders of the crypto PACs were at least ok with it. There's no way they couldn't have subtly squashed this pardon with Trump if it was just the Libertarians asking for it given that they seem to have gotten him to commit to do literally everything else they want.

There is no "legit crypto" - it's a myth. Every single exchange that swaps spit with the Bitcoin ledger is laundering money made by criminal (often violent or fraudulent) means. Many if not most altcoins are equally as fraudulent, or used to launder ("tumble") other suspicious coins.

Let's be honest anyways, the cryptocurrency "industry" as we know it is less than 4 years old, and in 4 years it may be gone. Exchanges like coinbase and so-called defi innovators like A16Z need this legally-dubious signalling or they'll risk never having another leader corrupt enough to sanction their behavior.