Justice doesn’t really apply if you’re friendly with the Trump administration. Sure, you’ve done some heinous acts and been convicted by a jury of your peers (or even simply pleaded guilty). But prison is boring, ugh, let’s just put in a call to the White House and get that pardon rubberstamped.
Trump recently raised eyebrows with the commutation of George Santos’ sentence, who’d previously dubbed Donald Trump “the greatest President in U.S. history.” Now he’s issued a full pardon to Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, the billionaire founder of crypto exchange Binance, who pled guilty to money laundering and served four months in prison.
But, incredibly, in an interview last night, Trump didn’t even appear to know who Zhao was, indicating he’d just signed off on this without bothering to check who he was pardoning:
COLLINS: Today you pardoned the founded of Binance. Can you explain why you did that?
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 23, 2025
TRUMP: Which one was that?
COLLINS: The founder of Binance
TRUMP: I believe we're talking about the same person, because I do pardon a lot of people. I don't know. He was recommended by a… pic.twitter.com/yl8WKhfmyt
When the reporter began quizzing Trump about Zhao’s involvement in the Trump family finances, he seemed confused, answering, “which one was that?”. The reporter clarified, only for Trump to shrug:
“I do pardon a lot of people. I don’t know. He was recommended by a lot of people. Are you talking about the crypto person?”
Too much corruption for one man to handle
To be fair to Trump, keeping on top of every single bit of corruption is almost impossible. I mean, when you’re using the presidency in every imaginable way to enrich yourself, a few teeny details are going to fall through the cracks. It was at this point that Trump suddenly got defensive, perhaps realizing getting your pardons mixed up is embarrassing:
“You don’t know much about crypto. You know nothing… you know nothing about nothing! You’re fake news!”
Trump went on to explain that “he’s been told” that what Zhao did wasn’t even a crime and that he was “persecuted by the Biden administration”. Well, good to know he’s not even bothering to check for himself on these things.
It’s darkly ironic that Trump and his cronies hammer endlessly about Joe Biden using an autopen to sign off on orders and insinuating he was too mentally checked out to run his own presidency. Meanwhile, you have Trump happily signing whatever pardon is put in front of him without a second thought!
