Crime Trump Pardons Convicted Binance Founder - Pardon follows months of efforts by Changpeng Zhao to boost the Trump crypto company

https://www.wsj.com/finance/currencies/trump-binance-changpeng-zhao-pardon-7509bd63 (Archive)


Changpeng Zhao Juliana Tan for WSJ

President Trump has pardoned Changpeng Zhao, the convicted founder of the crypto exchange Binance, according to people familiar with the matter, following months of efforts by Zhao to boost the Trump family’s own crypto company.

The president signed the pardon on Wednesday, the people said. Trump recently indicated to advisers that he was sympathetic to arguments of political persecution related to Zhao and others, one of the people said.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that Trump had “exercised his constitutional authority by issuing a pardon for Mr. Zhao, who was prosecuted by the Biden Administration in their war on cryptocurrency.” She added: “The Biden Administration’s war on crypto is over.”

Binance didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

A pardon will likely pave the way for Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, to return to the U.S., after the company pleaded guilty in 2023 to violating U.S. anti-money-laundering requirements and was barred from operating there.

The company has spent nearly a year pursuing a pardon for Zhao, who left prison in September 2024 after serving a four-month sentence for related charges. Earlier this year, the company hired lobbyist Ches McDowell to help pursue a pardon, the Journal previously reported.

Since Trump’s election, Binance has also been a key supporter of his family’s World Liberty Financial crypto venture, a business that has driven a huge leap in the president’s personal wealth.

The Justice Department imposed a record $4.3 billion fine and burdensome oversight on Binance, which it said had become a colossal money-laundering hub through which sanctioned groups and criminal organizations laundered billions of dollars in illicit funds.

The pardon may also prematurely end the Justice Department’s three-year Binance monitorship, set up to ensure the company complies with U.S. financial crime laws. However, it likely won’t end a separate monitorship established by the Treasury Department without the additional approval of Trump or the Treasury secretary.

Binance executives met with Treasury officials this spring to discuss loosening U.S. oversight on the company, which has lost ground over its rivals due to its legal troubles, the Wall Street Journal previously reported.

Binance first reached out to allies of Trump last year offering to strike a business deal with the family as part of a plan to return the company to the U.S, the Journal reported earlier this year. Representatives of the Trump family have held talks to take a financial stake in the U.S. arm of Binance.

At the time, Zhao said he hadn’t discussed a Binance.US deal with anyone but wrote on X, “No felon would mind a pardon.” He later filed a formal application for a pardon and hired U.S. lobbyists.

World Liberty has generated significantly more income for the Trump family in the past year than their property portfolio ever has annually.

Binance has been one of the main drivers of the growth of World Liberty’s dollar-pegged cryptocurrency, called USD1. It delivered World Liberty’s first big break this spring when it accepted a $2 billion investment from an outside investor paid in USD1. Binance has also incentivized trading in USD1 across platforms it controls.

 

[Ghostse]

I don't get why he pardoned this guy, I really hate cryptobros and their scammer overlords, but on the upside, if this makes people like David Gerard and Amy Castor buttmad, then I guess I am willing to give it a pass.

Its very common for political donors who have already served their sentence to get pardons to clean thier records. So you get back your gun rights, voting rights, and in this case not having the Treasury/FTC/SEC up their ass because the owner is a convicted felon.
This guy was probably very hard up to get the felony conviction off his record for international travel reasons.

This is how the conversation goes
"Do we like this guy?"
"Yes sir, a lot"
"He's already served his sentence and doesn't have any other pending litigation about his crime?"
"There is a custody order on his company by Treasury due to his felony convition, but the pardon will have no immediate bearing on that, it'll make it easier for them to get that repealed or not renewed."
"K i'll sign it"

I mean its shit behavior but all the mald is because its Trump. You didn't see this level of seethe when Clinton did it (and clinton really did it), when Dubya did it, when Obama did it, when Biden did it....
Though what's new and interesting is these sort of things are usually done on your way out the door of your final term. Doing this less than a year into the job and before midterms is pretty fucking wild. We'll see how that works out for him, Cotton.

Literally every financial service in history launders money, this was just targeted because neoliberals sees crypto as right-wing.

From my undertanding of the case, it was the scale and the fact they didn't even try to implement mandated regularatory safeguards. It wasn't necessarily malicious just absolutely retarded.

I mean 4.3 billion was laundered through Binance and all his guy got as 4 months in club fed, that should give you an idea of the strength of the government's case.

 

[Cool Dog Returns]

mutt retard noises

You are a newfag with a gaynada cartoon pfp, I'm not reading shit nigger dont even talk to me

 

[Dragged Into Sunlight]

Literally every financial service in history launders money, this was just targeted because neoliberals sees crypto as right-wing.

Yup. Everyone complains about how our financial system requires banks to spy on you and treat every customer as a potential criminal. It's the governments job to prove you did something illegal. Every bit of our privacy being invaded is justified by MUH DRUG LORDS AND MUH TERRORISM. Fuck you, what I do sith my money is my good damn business.

 

[grump]

Changpeng Zhao > Sam Bankman-Fried how will the Jews recover from this?

Despite what coffeezilla binging might have you believe there is zero comparison between what they did. SBF actively defrauded and stole. Zhao simply didn't buff his exchange enough to regulator's satisfaction.

Its not an especially big or particularly interesting crime compared to some of the others out there. You don't even have to squint that hard to question whether its a jail worthy crime at all vs an administrative infraction. And as others said he already served his jailtime so the practical effect of the pardon is even more limited and uninteresting. Its just making the rounds because they've made a dramatic TDS headline out of it.

 

[Blewberry Nausea]

Looks like homeboy wants to sue Elizabeth Warren for defamation over a tweet saying he pled guilty to money laundering

https://www.dlnews.com/articles/regulation/warren-defends-post-slamming-cz-pardon/

https://archive.ph/ag28u

• Senator Elizabeth Warren is defending a social media post decrying the pardon of Binance founder Changpeng Zhao.
• In that post, Warren said Zhao had “pleaded guilty to a criminal money laundering charge” and called his pardon “corrupt.”
• An attorney for Zhao has called the statement “defamatory” and threatened to sue.

A lawyer for US Senator Elizabeth Warren is defending a recent social media post in which the anti-crypto lawmaker decried “corruption” that led to the October 23 pardon of Binance founder Changpeng Zhao.

A lawyer for Zhao, better known as CZ, has threatened to sue the senator, calling her post “defamatory,” according to the New York Post.

Warren’s lawyer hit back on Sunday, according to a letter obtained by Punchbowl News.

“Simply put, any threatened defamation claim would be without merit,” Warren attorney Ben Stafford wrote.

Prison and pardon​

In 2023, Zhao pleaded guilty to violating the Bank Secrecy Act when he led Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange.

Specifically, he admitted Binance had failed to prevent criminals, sanctioned entities, and other bad actors from laundering billions of dollars in dirty money under his leadership.

In addition to his guilty plea, Zhao agreed to resign as CEO and pay a $50 million fine. He was later sentenced to four months in prison.

Since the reelection of US President Donald Trump, Zhao has quietly campaigned for a pardon, according to news reports that have prompted an occasional rebuke from the crypto mogul.

On October 23, Trump pardoned Zhao. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told DL News that Zhao had been “prosecuted by the Biden Administration in their war on cryptocurrency.”

With Zhao’s pardon, that war was “over,” Leavitt said.

Retraction request ​

Democrats quickly jumped on the news.

Maxine Waters, the top Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, has repeatedly criticised the decision, saying the pardon sends a “dangerous and reckless message to white-collar criminals and the entire cryptocurrency industry.”

Warren, meanwhile, took to X shortly after the news of Zhao’s pardon first broke.

“CZ pleaded guilty to a criminal money laundering charge and was sentenced to prison. But then he financed President Trump’s stablecoin and lobbied for a pardon,” she wrote on X on October 23.

“If Congress does not stop this kind of corruption, it owns it.”

Teresa Goody Guillen, an attorney for Zhao, told the Post that her boss was mulling a lawsuit.

“Mr. Zhao will not remain silent while a United States Senator seemingly misuses the office to repeatedly publish defamatory statements,” Goody Guillen wrote in a draft letter obtained by the Post.

“Accordingly, Mr. Zhao respectfully immediately requests the retraction of these false statements.”

Zhao’s lawyer wasn’t the only person who took issue with the way Warren characterised his guilty plea.

A crowdsourced “community note” was appended to Warren’s X post that read, “CZ pleaded guilty to violating the Bank Secrecy Act for failing to implement an effective anti-money laundering program. He did not plead guilty to money laundering.”

Bank Secrecy Act​

Warren has nothing to apologise for, according to Stafford.

Responding to an October 28 letter from Goody Guillén, Stafford said Zhao had, in fact, pleaded guilty to “a money laundering charge.”

Zhao had pleaded guilty to a violation of the Bank Secrecy Act, which is “widely referred to as an anti-money laundering law, including by federal agencies and courts,” Stafford wrote.

Moreover, even if Warren’s post wasn’t entirely accurate, it wasn’t made “with malice” — a required element of any defamation lawsuit.

“Among other things, ‘minor inaccuracies do not amount to falsity so long as “the substance, the gist, the sting, of the libelous charge [is] justified,’” Stafford wrote, citing a 1991 court ruling.

Still, Warren’s attorney insisted the senator was only referring to the charge Zhao had pleaded guilty to.

““Her X Post does not state — and should not be construed to state — that he pled guilty to any other money laundering charge,” he wrote.

Aleks Gilbert is a DeFi correspondent based in New York. Have a tip? Email him at aleks@dlnews.com.