Copyright Augusta Free Press
Who is this Changpeng Zhao guy, the crypto billionaire who pleaded guilty in 2024 to money laundering, and was pardoned last month by Donald Trump, who now claims he doesn’t know who Changpeng Zhao even is? “I don’t know who he is. I know he got a four-month sentence or something like that. And I heard it was a Biden witch hunt,” Trump said in an interview with “60 Minutes,” an edited version of which was broadcast by CBS on Sunday night. This Changpeng Zhao guy, who, to reiterate – he pleaded guilty; it’s not a witch hunt when a billionaire with the best lawyers in the world feels that copping a plea is his best option – is the co-founder and former CEO of a company that calls itself Binance, the largest cryptocurrency-holding entity in the world, with more than $200 billion in digital assets. The company, and its now-former CEO, came under federal scrutiny during the Biden years, with lawsuits from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and Securities and Exchange Commission alleging violations of U.S. law regarding money laundering. The CFTC lawsuit alleging that Binance allowed itself to be used by Hamas – yes, that Hamas – to cover the financial dealings of the terrorists who perpetrated the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks that killed more than 1,200 people in Israel, and precipitated the war in Gaza that has killed 68,000 Palestinians and wounded more than 170,000. Zhao, confronted with the facts, stepped down, pleaded guilty, agreed to a $50 million fine, and Binance also agreed to pay a $4.3 billion fine for its part in the scheme. The sticking point for the crypto billionaire: Zhao didn’t want to have to go to jail, but the judge in the case didn’t agree, and sentenced him to four months, which he served last year. Fast forward to 2025, then, and Binance found itself doing business with the Trump family – in August, the Wall Street Journal reported that Binance was administering a trading platform for the Trump family’s World Liberty Financial, and helped facilitate a $2 billion purchase of World Liberty Financial’s stablecoin by an investment firm associated with the ruling family of the United Arab Emirates, which got approval on a $15 billion deal with Microsoft to obtain powerful Nvidia AI chips in return for its investment in the Trumps. Then it emerged that Zhao had requested a pardon from Trump, because of course that was also part of the deal – the pardon was granted on Oct. 23, prompting this response from Zhao, who reportedly now lives in the UAE: “Deeply grateful for today’s pardon and to President Trump for upholding America’s commitment to fairness, innovation, and justice.” The significance of the pardon is that it lifts restrictions that had stopped Zhao from running financial ventures in the U.S., which he is now free and clear to resume doing. The significance of Trump claiming not to know who Changpeng Zhao is: is he lying about not knowing who he is to give himself political cover, or does he legitimately not know who Changpeng Zhao is, or that he authorized a pardon for a man whose company helped launder money for terrorists and is now laundering money for a company run by his sons? It doesn’t appear to be the latter, because as Trump weaved his way through his meandering answer to “60 Minutes” correspondent Norah O’Donnell, he revealed way, way too much. “Crypto’s turned out to be a massive industry, if you wanna call it that, and I’m very proud to say that we are far and away ahead of China and everybody else. Now, China is getting into it very big, right now. If you wanna go after people, you’re gonna kill that industry,” Trump said, adding later: “I wanna make crypto great for America. That’s the only thing. I don’t wanna have somebody else have crypto and have China be number one in the world in crypto. Because in crypto it’s a kind of an industry where basically you’re going to have number one and you’re not gonna have a number two. And right now we’re number one by a long shot. I wanna keep it that way. The same way we’re number one with AI, we’re number one with crypto. And I wanna keep it that way.” To be clear, crypto isn’t an “industry”; it’s alternative currency, and it’s used by shady businessmen (like the Trumps), criminal gangs and terrorists to move money and cover their tracks. Trump, for all of his issues with cognition, seems to get this. Take a gander at his final thoughts on having even been asked about Changpeng Zhao, from the transcript: O’DONNELL: So, not concerned about the appearance of corruption with this? TRUMP: 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, but I let you ask it. You just came to me, and you said, Can I ask another question? And I said, Yeah. This is the question. O’DONNELL: And you answered. TRUMP: I don’t mind. Did I let you do it? I coulda walked away. I didn’t have to answer this question. I’m proud to answer the question. You know why? We’ve taken crypto … O’DONNELL: But just generally speak … TRUMP: Excuse me. We’re No. 1 in crypto in the whole world. Other people wanna be. They’re fighting like hell to be. But we’re No. 1 in crypto because I’m the president. Biden wanted to also, at the very end, you know, he totally switched his thing. Yeah, Donald Trump totally knows who Changpeng Zhao is, and he knows this looks bad on him. What’s interesting here is, Donald Trump is brazen with being publicly corrupt on pretty much everything else. Why is he trying to be coy on Changpeng Zhao and this crypto grift?
