The pardon was the latest example of how high-profile business partners of Mr. Trump and his family have benefited from his rollback of the wide-ranging crypto crackdown orchestrated by President Joseph R. Biden Jr. To seek the pardon, Mr. Zhao hired lawyers and lobbyists with ties to the Trump administration, while Binance struck a business deal with World Liberty Financial, the Trump family’s crypto start-up.
 
That deal alone is poised to generate tens of millions of dollars a year for the Trumps and the family of Steve Witkoff, the president’s top Middle East adviser.

Mr. Trump has granted clemency to several other prominent crypto executives, including Ross Ulbricht, who ran the Bitcoin-fueled drug marketplace Silk Road. And since Mr. Trump took office, regulators have dropped lawsuits against Coinbase and other large crypto firms.

To spearhead his clemency push, Mr. Zhao hired Teresa Goody Guillén, a former Securities and Exchange Commission lawyer who also represents Zach Witkoff, the son of Mr. Trump’s Middle East adviser. Working alongside Ms. Goody Guillén was Ches McDowell, a lawyer and lobbyist who is a longtime hunting companion of Donald Trump Jr. Mr. McDowell was spotted with the president’s son at the White House last week.
 
At the same time, Binance forged a partnership with World Liberty Financial, the crypto company founded by the Trump and Witkoff families. In May, Zach Witkoff announced that Binance would receive a $2 billion investment in the form of a cryptocurrency called USD1, which World Liberty had developed

Mr. Zhao had pleaded guilty to money-laundering violations in 2023 and served four months in federal prison, after a yearslong investigation by financial regulators and U.S. prosecutors.

Long considered the crypto industry’s richest man, Mr. Zhao — a Chinese-born executive who now lives in the United Arab Emirates — admitted that he had violated the law by failing to install rigorous compliance systems at Binance. That allowed people in countries under sanctions, and terrorist groups like Hamas, Al Qaeda and the Islamic State, to move money on his platform.
 

Only about a third of the Trump interview aired on "60 Minutes." CBS has published the transcript of the complete interview here.
 
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/read-f [...] ent-trump/

NORAH O'DONNELL: Who's tougher to deal with, Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping?
 
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Both tough. Both smart. Both-- look, they're both very strong leaders. These are people not to be toyed with. These are people you have to take very serious. They're not-- they're not walking in saying, "Oh, isn't it a beautiful day? Look how beautiful. The sun is shining, it's so nice." These are serious people. These are people that are tough, smart leaders.

Then the election was rigged and stolen, and all of a sudden you see them forming up at the line.

NORAH O'DONNELL: This is a question about pardons. The Trump family is now perhaps more associated with cryptocurrency than real estate. You and your son-- your sons, Don Jr. and Eric, have formed World Liberty Financial with the Witkoff family.
 
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Right.
 
NORAH O'DONNELL: Helping to make your family millions of dollars. It's in that context that I do wanna ask you about crypto's richest man, a billionaire known as C.Z. He pled guilty in 2023 to violating anti-money laundering laws.
 
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Right.
 
NORAH O'DONNELL: Looked at this, the government at the time said that C.Z. had caused "significant harm to U.S. national security", essentially by allowing terrorist groups like Hamas to move millions of dollars around. Why did you pardon him?
 
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Okay, are you ready? 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. And what I wanna do is see crypto, 'cause if we don't do it it's gonna go to China, it's gonna go to-- this is no different to me than AI.
 
My sons are involved in crypto much more than I-- me. I-- I know very little about it, other than one thing. It's a huge industry. And if we're not gonna be the head of it, China, Japan, or someplace else is. So I am behind it 100%. This man was, in my opinion, from what I was told, this is, you know, a four-month sentence.
 
But this man was treated really badly by the Biden administration. And he was given a jail term. He's highly respected. He's a very successful guy. They sent him to jail and they really set him up. That's my opinion. I was told about it.
 
I said, "Eh, it may look bad if I do it. I have to do the right thing." I don't know the man at all. I don't think I ever met him. Maybe I did. Or, you know, somebody shook my hand or something. But I don't think I ever met him. I have no idea who he is. 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.
 
NORAH O'DONNELL: The government had accused him of "significant harm to U.S. national security"--
 
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: That's the Biden government.
 
NORAH O'DONNELL: Okay. Allowing U.S. terrorist groups to, you know, essentially move millions of dollars around. He pled guilty to anti-money laundering laws. That was in 2023. Then in 2025 his crypto exchange, Binance, helped facilitate a $2 billion purchase of World Liberty Financial's stablecoin. And then you pardoned C.Z. How do you address the appearance of pay for play?
 
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, here's the thing, I know nothing about it because I'm too busy doing the other--
 
NORAH O'DONNELL: But he got a pardon--
 
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I can only tell you that--
 
NORAH O'DONNELL: He got a pardon--
 
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Norah, I can only tell you this. My sons are into it. 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. And they're good-- my one son is a number one bestseller now.
 
My wife just had a number one bestseller. I'm proud of them for doing that. I'm focused on this. I know nothing about the guy, other than I hear he was a victim of weaponization by government. When you say the government, you're talking about the Biden government.
 
It's a corrupt government. Biden was the most corrupt president and he was the worst president we've ever had. I only care about one thing. Will crypto be-- will we be number one in crypto? Crypto has turned out, and in that sense I've been right.
 
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.
 
And it'll be very bad. Tremendous number of jobs. I campaigned positively on crypto, very openly. I campaigned. Biden campaigned against it. When Biden found out that I was getting, like, 100% of the crypto vote, which was a lot, he switched totally and he went in favor of crypto.
 
They were totally in favor. They had many people under indictment. They let 'em all go. They let 'em all go. You know that. Many people were under indictment. Biden was a corrupt president. Biden went all in on crypto at the very end because he thought he could get some votes.
 
It didn't work. They voted for me. 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.
 
NORAH O'DONNELL: So not concerned about the appearance of corruption with this?
 
PRESIDENT DONALD 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--
 
NORAH O'DONNELL: And you answered--
 
PRESIDENT DONALD 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--
 
NORAH O'DONNELL: But just generally speak--  
 
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Excuse me. We're number one in crypto in the whole world. Other people wanna be. They're fighting like hell to be. But we're number one in crypto because I'm the president. Biden wanted to also, at the very end, you know, he totally switched his thing.
 
You know, Biden was totally in favor of crypto at the end. Do you know that many people that were indicted under Biden for crypto, at the very end before the election, were let go? You know why? He wanted the vote. We are number one in crypto and that's the only thing I care about. I don't want China or anybody else to take it away. It's a massive industry.
 
NORAH O'DONNELL: Mr. President, thank you.
 
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Thank you very much.

« Ceci est un changement de régime », une conversation avec Kevin Roberts, cerveau du Projet 2025