President Donald Trump has claimed that he doesn’t know who Changpeng Zhao is — the cryptocurrency billionaire he pardoned last month with ties to the first family’s own crypto venture.
Zhao, who also goes by “CZ,” is the founder of crypto exchange company Binance and helped the Trump family’s own venture – World Liberty Financial – make billions just before the president pardoned him.
The rejuvenated company now stands to reap its own windfall, a report revealed last week.
The crypto boss was pardoned 10 days ago after pleading guilty in 2023 to enabling money laundering. He agreed to step down as the CEO of Binance as part of a $4.3 billion settlement with the Justice Department and served four months in prison.
Trump was quizzed about the pardon in an interview with Norah O’Donnell on CBS News program 60 Minutes that aired Sunday.
“The government at the time said that CZ had caused ‘significant harm to U.S. national security,’ essentially by allowing terrorist groups like Hamas to move millions of dollars around,” said O’Donnell. “Why did you pardon him?”
“Okay, are you ready?” replied Trump. “I don't know who he is.”
Trump added that he “heard” Zhao’s case was “a Biden witch hunt.”
O’Donnell then pressed the president about the optics of pardoning Zhao after Binance helped facilitate a $2 billion purchase of World Liberty Financial’s stablecoin.
“Well, here's the thing, I know nothing about it because I'm too busy doing the other…” Trump said, before O’Donnell interrupted him to say, “But he got a pardon.”
“Norah, I can only tell you this. My sons are into it,” said Trump. “I'm glad they are, because it's probably a great industry, crypto. I think it's good. You know, they're running a business, they're not in government.”
The president then attempted to pivot away from the subject to discuss crypto more broadly, but O’Donnell brought the conversation back to Zhao’s pardon.
She asked the president if he was concerned “about the appearance of corruption,” and Trump appeared to lose his patience.
“I can't say, because… I can't say…I'm not concerned. I don't… I'd rather not have you ask the question,” Trump said, according to the full CBS transcript of the interview.
The Independent has contacted the White House for comment.
Members of the Trump family, through an umbrella company, own more than half of World Liberty.
World Liberty’s new stablecoin product — a cryptocurrency whose value is designed to maintain a one-to-one value with the U.S. dollar — saw the value of its shares jump from $127 million to over $2.1 billion this spring after Binance stepped in, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The technology that supports World Liberty’s stablecoin, USD1, was built by Binance and weeks after USD1 launched in March, an Emirati state-backed fund — MGX — used it to invest $2 billion in Zhao’s company, according to Bloomberg. The move by MGX reportedly provided World Liberty with the opportunity to net potentially tens of millions of dollars in interest.
World Liberty told the WSJ that Binance was not involved in the deal with MGX, while a lawyer for Binance said that Zhao “did not act as the relationship facilitator or financier” between MGX and the Trump family’s crypto venture.
Now that Trump has pardoned Zhao, the world’s largest trading crypto platform is likely to make a comeback in the U.S. following the 2023 ban.
World Liberty told the WSJ that a pardon was never discussed. The company’s lawyer, Tom Clare, said World Liberty “has never assisted in, facilitated, or influenced a decision on Mr. Zhao’s presidential pardon.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt previously told the outlet that neither Trump “nor his family have ever engaged, or will ever engage, in conflicts of interest.”
Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren blasted Trump’s decision to pardon Zhao.
“First, Changpeng Zhao pleaded guilty to a criminal money laundering charge. Then he boosted one of Donald Trump’s crypto ventures and lobbied for a pardon,” Warren said in a statement. “If Congress does not stop this kind of corruption in pending market structure legislation, it owns this lawlessness.”
“Trump is selling pardons to anyone who can personally profit him. It’s a shameful abuse of power and a mockery of justice,” added Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York.
Even some of Trump’s supporters were vocal in their opposition to Zhao’s pardon.
Joe Lonsdale, the co-founder of software company Palantir Technologies, said Trump “has been terribly advised” in a post on X last week. “It makes it look like massive fraud is happening around him in this area,” Lonsdale, a Trump supporter, said.
