Trump Pardons Binance Founder Changpeng Zhao After $2 Billion Stablecoin Deal

President Trump pardoned Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao (‘CZ’), who had served four months in prison for enabling money laundering violations and pleading guilty to violating the Bank Secrecy Act. The pardon came after Binance’s extensive lobbying efforts, including hiring Charles McDowell (friend of Donald Trump Jr.) for $450,000, and after UAE-backed MGX agreed to invest $2 billion in Binance using the Trump family’s World Liberty Financial stablecoin (USD1). The timing raised serious conflict of interest concerns, as the Trump family’s crypto venture is hosted on Binance, and Binance’s support helped popularize World Liberty Financial’s proprietary tokens, generating hundreds of millions in fees for the Trump family. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt justified the pardon claiming Zhao was targeted in Biden’s ‘war on cryptocurrency’ despite ’no allegations of fraud or identifiable victims’—a false characterization given Binance paid $4 billion in fines for anti-money laundering failures, unlicensed money transmitting, and sanctions violations that enabled child sex abuse, narcotics trafficking, and terrorist financing. Senator Elizabeth Warren condemned the pardon as ‘corruption’ and ’lawlessness.’ The pardon exemplifies Trump’s systematic monetization of presidential clemency power to benefit business partners and campaign contributors while eliminating legal consequences for financial crimes.