President Donald Trump pardoned Changpeng Zhao, co-founder of Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, on Wednesday. Binance is a global trading platform that handles billions of dollars in crypto transactions each day. In 2023, Zhao, also known as CZ, pleaded guilty to failing to maintain an effective anti-money-laundering program at Binance, a violation of the Bank Secrecy Act. He admitted that the company allowed U.S. customers to trade with sanctioned jurisdictions and ignored warning signs of criminal activity on the platform. Last year, he served a four-month prison sentence.
The pardon immediately drew criticism for Zhao’s known business links to World Liberty Financial, Inc. (WLFI). That is the president’s own crypto venture, co-founded with three of his sons, real estate developers Steve and Zach Witkoff, and several other investors.
Why Pardon Zhao?
At the White House, Trump was asked about the pardon:
Today you pardoned the founder of Binance. Can you explain why you chose to pardon him, and did it have anything to do with your family’s [crypto] business?
The president paused to confirm whom the journalist meant. He then launched into what sounded less like a legal explanation and more like a reflex — strongly evoking the “autopen” scandal of his predecessor:
I believe we’re talking about the same person, because I pardon a lot of people. I don’t know. He was recommended by a lot of people. A lot of people say — Are you talking about the crypto person? A lot of people say that he wasn’t guilty of anything.
He then continued,
He was somebody — I don’t know — I don’t believe I’ve ever met him. But I’ve been told by a lot — a lot of support — he had a lot of support, and they said that what he did was not even a crime, that he was prosecuted by the Biden administration. And so I gave him a pardon on request by a lot of good people.
Press-secretary Karoline Leavitt defended the move at a White House briefing. She said the president had exercised his constitutional authority and that the pardon followed “thorough” review. She added that the case was “overly prosecuted” by the Joe Biden administration.
Leavitt also issued a separate statement, reported by Politico. She argued that the Biden administration “pursued Mr. Zhao despite no allegations of fraud or identifiable victims.” She added that prosecutors had sought “a sentence so far outside the guidelines that even the judge called it unprecedented.” Leavitt said the case had “damaged America’s reputation as a global tech leader” and declared, “The Biden administration’s war on crypto is over.”
Hellbound and Down 