Bret Baier pressed a not too long ago pardoned cryptocurrency kingpin about potential ties to President Donald Trump’s personal crypto enterprise.
Final month, Trump pardoned Changpeng Zhao. In 2023, Zhao resigned because the CEO of Binance and pleaded responsible to permitting cash laundering on the crypto platform. He served 4 months in jail. After Trump’s victory in 2024, Binance “fashioned a high-level activity power to strike a take care of the Trumps’ nascent cryptocurrency enterprise, World Liberty Monetary, that Binance might leverage into clemency for Zhao,” according to The Wall Road Journal, which cited sources conversant in the matter. The publication added that Binance “catapulted the Trump household enterprise’s new stablecoin product, enhancing its credibility and pushing its market capitalization up from $127 million to over $2.1 billion.”
Regardless of pardoning Zhao, Trump has claimed he is aware of nothing about him.
“I don’t know who he’s,” Trump told 60 Minutes on Sunday. “I do know he bought a four-month sentence or one thing like that. And I heard it was a Biden witch hunt.”
Zhao appeared on Friday’s Particular Report on Fox Information, the place he denied having any enterprise with World Liberty Monetary, which was co-founded by the president’s sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump. The Binance founder mentioned he was “stunned” by the pardon, which prompted this change:
BAIER: You say you have been stunned by the pardon. How did it come about?
ZHAO: So, what I meant by “shock” is I don’t know when or if it’s gonna occur. So, I consider my legal professionals submitted the petition in April. It took just a few months. I don’t know the progress. There was no indication of how far it went alongside, et cetera. So, then it simply occurred in the future.
BAIER: Yeah. You perceive the skeptics who have a look at this and say, “Clearly you have been performing some enterprise with a agency that’s tied to President Trump’s sons. And we’re speaking about hundreds of thousands and hundreds of thousands of {dollars} price.” So, you’re saying that’s not the rationale you bought the pardon?
ZHAO: Completely not. I feel these are fully categorically false info. I shouldn’t have any enterprise relationship with any of the sons of President Trump.
BAIER: Right here’s how The Wall Road journal writes it: “Across the time of the election, Zhao’s representatives started discussions with allies of Trump wished to discover a answer to Binance’s authorized troubles within the U.S. and providing a take care of a Trump household enterprise. As soon as Trump gained, Binance fashioned high-level activity power to strike a take care of the Trumps’ nascent cryptocurrency enterprise, World Liberty Monetary, that Binance might leverage into clemency for Zhao.” Is that not correct?
ZHAO: That’s full not correct. There’s no deal. There has by no means been any discussions. It’s so simple as that.
BAIER: You’re saying there is no such thing as a connection to the Trump sons who clearly do that agency, World Liberty Monetary.
ZHAO: There’s no enterprise relationships between me, Binance, and World Liberty Monetary. So, I feel all of these connections are categorially false. They simply don’t exist.
Watch above by way of Fox Information.
