- A lawyer for Changpeng Zhao mentioned the Binance founder had not paid to safe his October pardon.
- “That’s not who he’s,” Teresa Goody Guillen mentioned in a podcast look on Friday.
- She known as media experiences suggesting in any other case “a pile up of rather a lot of false statements.
A lawyer for Binance founder Changpeng Zhao has denied that Zhao paid to safe his October pardon from US President Donald Trump.
“I simply know that that may by no means occur, that’s not who he’s,” Zhao’s lawyer, Teresa Goody Guillen, said Friday on the Pomp Podcast, hosted by crypto investor Anthony Pompliano.
Pompliano had requested whether or not the president managed a “secret Bitcoin pockets” that Zhao or Binance had paid in trade for his pardon.
“We’d see that tracked,” Goody Guillen added, referring to the transparency of blockchain ledgers. Blockchain transactions are public, although they solely reveal the alphanumeric addresses of wallets that ship and obtain crypto, quite than the identities of the wallets’ house owners.
Binance has developed shut ties with the Trump household because the president received reelection final November, in response to information experiences.
On the similar time, Zhao, who served a four-month prison sentence in 2024, requested and acquired a presidential pardon, elevating questions on a possible quid-pro-quo.
Trump’s opponents have pounced on Binance’s ties to the Trump household and on Zhao’s pardon.
“If Congress doesn’t cease this type of corruption, it owns it,” US Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts, mentioned in October.
In 2023, Zhao pleaded responsible to violating the Financial institution Secrecy Act when he led Binance, the world’s largest crypto trade.
Particularly, he admitted Binance had failed to forestall criminals, sanctioned entities, and different dangerous actors from laundering billions of {dollars} in soiled cash beneath his management.
Along with his responsible plea, Zhao agreed to resign as CEO and pay a $50 million nice. Binance pleaded guilty to comparable fees and agreed to pay $4.3 billion in penalties.
Trump-Binance ties
Because the election, Binance has develop into enmeshed with World Liberty Monetary, a crypto firm part-owned by the president and different members of his household.
Trump household firm DT Marks DEFI LLC once held a 75% stake in World Liberty. As we speak, the World Liberty website states DT Marks holds a 38% stake within the firm. DT Marks and sure members of the Trump household additionally maintain 22.5 billion World Liberty tokens, and DT Marks receives 75% of the proceeds from the sale of these tokens.
Binance wrote the code for the good contract that powers the World Liberty stablecoin, USD1, Bloomberg reported in July. Zhao denied the report and threatened to sue the publication.
In March, United Arab Emirates-backed funding agency MGX mentioned it will take a $2 billion stake in Binance. In Could, the agency mentioned it will use USD1 to finish the transaction.
Binance later ran a promotional marketing campaign to spice up USD1 buying and selling quantity on PancakeSwap, a decentralised trade it created in 2020, the Wall Road Journal reported. PancakeSwap runs on BNB Chain, a blockchain created by Binance.
Individually, representatives of the Trump household have mentioned taking a stake in Binance’s US arm, in response to a Wall Road Journal report.
“I’ve had no discussions of a Binance US take care of … nicely, anybody,” the billionaire wrote on X after the report was revealed.
“No felon would thoughts a pardon, particularly being the one one in US historical past who was ever sentenced to jail for a single [Bank Secrecy Act] cost,” he added.
Binance has been functionally barred from the US market because it pleaded responsible in 2023. Zhao’s pardon might make it simpler for the corporate to reenter the US, in response to information experiences.
‘False statements’
In her look on the Pomp Podcast, Goody Guillen known as the reporting on the World Liberty-Binance relationship “a pile up of rather a lot of false statements, misstatements.”
“There’s no foundation for it apart from ‘sources which might be near anyone,’ which is code for ‘not a robust supply,’” she mentioned.
The lawyer additionally dismissed criticism tied to the MGX deal.
“That’s much like saying, ‘You purchase wheat from me, and also you pay in a Swiss franc, and subsequently I’m investing in Swiss francs, and I’m paying to play with the politicians in Switzerland,’” mentioned Goody Guillen, who also represents World Liberty.
The lawyer mentioned Zhao’s pardon was a matter of equity, calling the crime to which he pleaded responsible a mere “regulatory infraction.”
“Identify your huge monetary establishment — it has most definitely been charged with both these similar violations or extra egregious ones, and we don’t see their executives being prosecuted,” she mentioned.
“There’s nonetheless rather a lot of injury that was accomplished to Binance and to CZ each. However an enormous loser in that is the US. Binane nonetheless isn’t right here.”
Aleks Gilbert is DL News’ New York-based DeFi correspondent. You’ll be able to attain him at aleks@dlnews.com.
