Democrats Demand DOJ Explain Trump’s Pardon Of Binance Co-Founder CZ
Seven Democratic senators have asked the Justice Department to explain President Donald Trump’s decision to pardon Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao, aka CZ, warning it could embolden financial crime in the crypto sector.
In an open letter letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, the lawmakers said the pardon “signals to cryptocurrency executives and other white-collar criminals that they can commit crimes with impunity, so long as they enrich President Trump enough.”
The senators, including Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, accused Trump of rewarding CZ for forming financial ties with his family’s crypto venture, World Liberty Financial.
They said the pardon “flagrantly undermines the work of federal law-enforcement teams that spent years investigating and prosecuting Binance’s offenses,” which led to a $4.3 billion settlement and a four-month prison term for CZ.
Lawmakers Say Binance And CZ Started “Cozying Up” To Trump During His Campaign
The Democratic lawmakers argued that Binance and Zhao “began cozying up to the President and his family through a series of financial deals” connected to the Trump family’s World Liberty Financial.
They noted that World Liberty Financial’s USD1 stablecoin and WLFI token were both listed on Binance.
WLFI on Binance (Source: Binance)
“In sum: after Mr. Zhao’s company provided President Trump and his family with a revenue stream worth millions of dollars, President Trump pardoned him for criminal activity that he admitted to conducting,” the Democratic Senators wrote.
CZ Threatens Senator Warren With Defamation Lawsuit
This is not the first time Senator Warren has criticized Trump for pardoning the Binance founder. Shortly after news of the pardon broke, she took to X and urged Congress to address the alleged “corruption.”
And now the Binance co-founder is mulling a libel suit against Warren for alleged defamation, the New York Post reported.
“Mr. Zhao will not remain silent while a United States Senator seemingly misuses the office to repeatedly publish defamatory statements that impugn his reputation,” CZ’s lawyer Teresa Goody Guillén wrote in a draft letter, the newspaper reported.
“Accordingly, Mr. Zhao respectfully immediately requests the retraction of these false statements, both within the resolution and on X,” the lawyer said.
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