With fresh pardon, CZ owns Donald Trump
Changpeng Zhao (aka CZ), who was convicted for not abiding by anti-money laundering laws and violating the Bank Secrecy Act, has been granted a new legal clean slate, with President Donald Trump providing the founder and former Binance CEO a pardon.
CZ was forced to resign from his executive position at the world’s biggest crypto exchange in 2023. Binance was also forced to pay the largest fine to the US government in history.
The reason for the pardon wasn’t spelled out for the public. However, according to the Wall Street Journal, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that Trump had “exercised his constitutional authority by issuing a pardon for Mr. Zhao, who was prosecuted by the Biden Administration in their war on cryptocurrency.”
Read more: Binance wants a Trump partnership and a pardon for CZ, report
There are no laws here, only unenforceable rules
What CZ’s pardon makes clear — as if it wasn’t already obvious with the pardon of former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich, the pardoning of BitMEX and its executives, the staying of cases brought against TRON founder Justin Sun, and the dismissal of the case against Nikola EV CEO Trevor Milton — is that financial criminals have found effective avenues to lobby the president in search of clemency.
While this is obviously great news for criminals, it may point to a truly dark time for America, where kleptocracy rules and actual laws mean very little.
The message sent by pardoning CZ is two-fold: it suggests that he may be getting ready to return to his executive role at Binance and makes it seem that partnering with or investing in the president’s memecoin and other utterly useless projects helps attract his attention to your case.
King Trump is dead, long live king Changpeng Zhao.
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