Final month, President Trump granted a pardon to a billionaire felon, after the felon’s firm enriched a Trump household enterprise. The pardon went to Changpeng Zhao, a Chinese language-born businessman, who was accused by the Justice Division of inflicting, quote, “…vital hurt to U.S. nationwide safety…” The president says he doesn’t know Zhao. Our reporting exhibits that Zhao’s firm supported a Trump household agency at vital moments main as much as the president’s pardon.
Changpeng Zhao is founder of Binance, the world’s largest change for cryptocurrency or digital cash on the web. In 2023, Zhao and his firm pled responsible to failing to stop cash laundering on binance. Binance paid a $4 billion tremendous. Zhao served a 4 month sentence.
Elizabeth Oyer: He is one of the richest males in the world. And he was basically permitting his firm for use as a platform to finance felony exercise, to ship cash to terrorist organizations, Al-Qaeda, Hamas, ISIS and he was prosecuted criminally for that.
Elizabeth Oyer is aware of pardons. She was in cost of vetting pardon functions at the Justice Division. She’s been a critic of the Trump administration since she was changed final spring by a Trump loyalist. Oyer informed us Zhao wasn’t near assembly Justice Division tips for a pardon.
Scott Pelley: You’ll describe this pardon as uncommon?
Elizabeth Oyer: The affect that cash performed in securing this pardon is unprecedented. The self-dealing side of the pardon in phrases of the profit that it conferred on President Trump, and his household, and folks in his inside circle can be unprecedented.
Scott Pelley: Is that this justice?
Elizabeth Oyer: That is completely not justice. That is corruption.
60 Minutes 
In the 2024 marketing campaign, Donald Trump supplied full-throated assist for the crypto business. And, on-line, he, his household and companions introduced they had been opening a crypto agency of their very own.
Trump World Liberty Monetary promo: We’re embracing the future with crypto and leaving the gradual and outdated large banks behind that is what we wanna do. Go to World Liberty Monetary dot com.
World Liberty Monetary can be like a financial institution providing monetary providers in digital currencies. Its pitch to buyers often known as a “white paper” was gilded as a “gold paper.”
Scott Pelley: When World Liberty Monetary launched earlier than the election, was it an enormous success?
Austin Campbell: It was largely unknown. They’d had a fundraising spherical that had solely been partially stuffed. They’d a staff that I feel solely had one, or perhaps a handful of engineers at finest, and actually not a lot was happening there.
Austin Campbell is a former banker who’s briefed Congress on crypto. He was a crypto government and now teaches at New York College.
Scott Pelley: For those who’re beginning a crypto firm from scratch, what are the technical hurdles?
Austin Campbell: You must rent engineers, you could deploy all of the infrastructure that you’re going to want, basically, to run a tech firm.
Enter Changpeng Zhao, final fall, contemporary out of jail. Sources inform us Zhao’s firm, Binance, donated software program to World Liberty to assist the Trump household enterprise launch a cryptocurrency. A supply conversant in occasions informed us, with out Zhao, quote, “the know-how does not exist.”
The following month, Changpeng Zhao utilized for a presidential pardon. And shortly after the utility, he was at the heart of a blockbuster deal that put World Liberty on the map. Zhao is a citizen of the United Arab Emirates in the Persian Gulf and in Could, an Emirati fund put $2 billion in Zhao’s Binance. Of all the currencies in the world, the deal was accomplished in World Liberty crypto.
Austin Campbell: So it took World Liberty from being a small mission that perhaps was on the street map after the election, purely for the title, to being one of the largest stablecoins in the world in a single transaction. So, it vaulted them from small time to the large leagues.
60 Minutes 
The Emirates entrusted two billion to a foreign money that had been on the market 5 weeks. One supply informed us, “it wasn’t unusual. It was nuts.”
Lawrence Lessig: The one purpose it is sensible is to ingratiate with the president.
Lawrence Lessig has spent practically 20 years on ethics in politics. He teaches regulation at Harvard and has campaigned with the left and the proper in opposition to the corrupting affect of cash.
Scott Pelley: Are you saying that the president is compromised by this transaction?
Lawrence Lessig: “Compromised” is precisely the description as a result of we won’t know what’s the precise purpose for the choices that the administration is making. Are the causes serving to America, or are the causes serving to America and likewise serving to them privately?
The Emiratis informed us they selected World Liberty for, quote, “enterprise suitability.” Final Could, two weeks after their World Liberty deal, Trump introduced that the Emirates would spend money on America and the U.S. would offer one thing the Emiratis coveted — extremely restricted chips for synthetic intelligence. There is not any proof that the chips are associated to the two billion in World Liberty crypto.
Lawrence Lessig: There is not any clear proof of quid professional quo. However there would not be. No person is so silly as to conduct themselves with that specific construction. As a substitute, it is the tradition of giving and exchanging in a way more casual method that we clearly know is going on proper now.
Scott Pelley: What does it imply to U.S. international coverage?
Lawrence Lessig: For those who’re an affordable, rational international authorities, and also you’re asking, “How can we get the Individuals to do what we wanna have them do?” Earlier than this administration what you would need to do is to make a superb argument. Now you might have another choice. “There’s additionally the $2 billion that I’ve channeled into your non-public bank-like entity. And I am not saying that I am bribing you. I am not saying that you simply owe me something as a result of of that. I simply need you to know that that is what I’ve accomplished.” Look, any bizarre American would perceive why that is a corrupting relationship. Anyone would get it.
60 Minutes 
There’s one other essential level about the Emirati deal. Zhao’s Binance left the $2 billion deposited in World Liberty Monetary. That cash may very well be incomes curiosity for the Trump’s and their companions of $80 million a 12 months. Additionally, two billion represents most of World Liberty’s deposits.
One supply informed us, Zhao, quote, “now controls whether or not [World Liberty] dies or lives. He has a sword over their head.” Final month, October twenty first, President Trump signed the “full and unconditional pardon” for Changpeng Zhao. The pardon was not introduced. However, two days later, when it leaked, Trump did not appear to know Zhao’s title.
President Trump (at Homeland Safety roundtable, 10/23/25): Are you speaking about the crypto particular person?
Reporter: Sure
President Trump (at Homeland Safety roundtable, 10/23/25): Quite a bit of individuals say that he wasn’t responsible of something. He served 4 months in jail, they usually say that he was not responsible of something, that–
Reporter: He admitted to his crimes–
President Trump (at Homeland Safety roundtable, 10/23/25):–what he did. Nicely, you do not know a lot about crypto. You recognize nothing about- You recognize nothing about nothing. You pretend information. However let me simply let you know that he was anyone that as I used to be informed, I do not know him. I do not consider I’ve ever met him, however I have been informed by —a lot of assist, he had rather a lot of assist, they usually mentioned that what he did just isn’t even a criminal offense, it wasn’t a criminal offense that he was persecuted by the Biden administration and so I gave him a pardon at the request of rather a lot of superb individuals.
Final Could, he was requested about the Emirates $2 billion World Liberty deal.
President Trump (on Air Pressure 1 on 5/14/25): I do not know something about it. I actually do not know something about it. However I am an enormous crypto fan, I’ll let you know, I have been that from the starting, proper from the marketing campaign.
The White Home informed us, quote, “neither the president nor his household has engaged in conflicts of curiosity.” Eric Trump, co-founder of World Liberty, has mentioned, “my father has nothing to do with our firm.”
Scott Pelley: The president’s companies are in a belief that’s operated by his household.
Michael Gerhardt: Proper
Scott Pelley: Is not that sufficient to defend him from costs of self-dealing?
Michael Gerhardt: By no means. The president does not need to be concerned day-to-day with a purpose to know that he is benefiting financially.
Michael Gerhardt is a constitutional scholar consulted by each events in congress. He teaches at the College of North Carolina.
Michael Gerhardt: All these issues profit Trump and Trump household. They don’t profit the individuals of the United States in order that makes it a basic instance of a battle of curiosity the Structure is designed to stop.
Scott Pelley: Is that actually a hurt to the nation?
Michael Gerhardt: Completely. He has divided loyalties he is obtained individuals who have invested in his enterprise he needs to maintain joyful. However there’s additionally the extra drawback that the president is utilizing his workplace and the sources of his workplace in different phrases our cash, federal tax {dollars} to assist promote that enterprise.
60 Minutes 
Neither World Liberty nor Binance agreed to an interview. In an e-mail, an lawyer for Zhao and Binance says that neither supplied “…technical assist, personnel, or some other sources…” However World Liberty attorneys did admit Binance supplied what they name “freely out there” software program “…merely to save lots of WLF [World Liberty] from losing time…” World Liberty’s attorneys say that the firm “…has by no means contacted the president about Mr. Zhao…” and “…didn’t play a job in Mr. Zhao’s current presidential pardon.”
Zhao’s is not the solely controversial pardon. President Biden pardoned his son, convicted of tax and gun crimes. President Clinton pardoned the financier Marc Wealthy after Wealthy’s ex-wife donated greater than one million {dollars} to Democratic causes. Liz Oyer, former head of pardons at the Justice Division informed us that she was fired in March after she refused to log off on a Trump administration request to revive gun rights to the actor Mel Gibson who was convicted of home battery. In Oyer’s view, the administration is utilizing pardons as rewards for mates, allies and donors.
Scott Pelley: We’ve talked to dozens of people who find themselves concerned in all features of this. They usually have knowledgeable our reporting however have declined to take a seat down for an interview on 60 Minutes for concern of retribution. And I’m wondering why you’re doing this.
Elizabeth Oyer: I’m very nervous, Scott, about the future of our nation. This president seems to be promoting off items of our democracy. And the presidential pardon power is a solemn instrument of the presidency that the founders of our nation entrusted to the president with the concept that he would use it for the public good.
Harvard regulation professor, Lawrence Lessig, says limitless cash in political campaigns and now, the Trump administration, have taken the nation the place it is by no means been.
Lawrence Lessig: Look, there’s at all times been cash in politics, however there’s by no means been cash at the degree that you’ve it immediately. And now along with that sort of institutional corruption, there’s a reliable concern that there is a non-public type of corruption happening inside of the government department as a result of of the combination of non-public monetary pursuits and public coverage. That is the most excessive it is ever been. And America is in jeopardy as a result of of that as a result of we have already got a public that has misplaced religion in our authorities. As a result of all of us, whether or not Republican or Democrat or Unbiased, take a look at this method and say, “this can be a corrupt system.”
Changpeng Zhao did not reply to our request for an interview. In a short look on FOX Information, he mentioned, quote, “I do not need a enterprise relationship with any of the sons of President Trump.” Zhao’s Binance nonetheless has about $2 billion in the Trump household’s World Liberty Monetary.
Produced by Maria Gavrilovic. Affiliate producers, Madeleine Carlisle and Georgia Rosenberg. Broadcast affiliate, Michelle Karim. Information affiliate, Ava Peabody. Edited by Peter M. Berman.
