Copyright The New York Times
President Trump last month granted a pardon to Changpeng Zhao, the billionaire founder of a cryptocurrency exchange who had pleaded guilty to money-laundering violations in 2023, and whose company struck a business deal in May involving the Trump family’s crypto venture. But now the president has claimed he did not know who Mr. Zhao was. Mr. Trump distanced himself from Mr. Zhao in an interview with “60 Minutes” broadcast on Sunday, during which he was questioned about the decision to pardon Mr. Zhao, who pleaded guilty in 2023 after being accused of money-laundering violations that allowed criminals to move money on his cryptocurrency exchange, Binance. “I don’t know who he is,” Mr. Trump said. “I know he got a four-month sentence or something like that. And I heard it was a Biden witch hunt.” In seeking his pardon, Mr. Zhao hired lawyers and lobbyists with ties to the Trump administration, while Binance struck a business deal involving World Liberty Financial, the Trump family’s crypto venture, that was expected to generate tens of millions of dollars a year for the Trump family. Asked about the “appearance of corruption,” Mr. Trump bristled. “I’d rather not have you ask the question,” he said. “But I let you ask it.” During the interview, Mr. Trump suggested that his older sons — Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, both of whom stood alongside him when he rolled out World Liberty Financial in 2024 — were more involved in the family’s crypto business than he is. “My sons are into it,” he said. “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.” Eric Trump, who runs the family business, told The New York Times earlier this year that crypto is “one of the more successful things we’ve ever done.” Mr. Zhao, long considered the crypto industry’s richest man, was convicted after a yearslong investigation by financial regulators and prosecutors. The case was one of the U.S. government’s most significant crackdowns on crypto crime. Mr. Trump drew a parallel between himself and Mr. Zhao, linking the federal prosecution of the crypto billionaire to the New York criminal case in which Mr. Trump was convicted of falsifying business records to cover up a sex scandal that threatened to derail his 2016 presidential campaign. “I was told that he was a victim, just like I was and just like many other people, of a vicious, horrible group of people in the Biden administration,” Mr. Trump said.
