President Donald Trump insulted a CNN reporter Thursday who asked about his pardon of cryptocurrency exchange founder Changpeng Zhao.<\/p>\n
CNN anchor and chief Washington correspondent Kaitlan Collins<\/a> asked Trump whether Zhao\u2019s involvement with the president\u2019s family\u2019s crypto business was a factor in issuing the pardon.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cA lot of people say that he wasn\u2019t guilty of anything. He served four months in jail and they say that he was not guilty of anything,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n \u201cThat what he did — well, you don\u2019t know much about crypto,\u201d Trump told Collins, \u201cyou know nothing about nothing. You\u2019re fake news.<\/p>\n \u201cBut let me just tell you,\u201d Trump continued, \u201cthat he was somebody that, as I was told … that what he did is not even a crime, wasn\u2019t even a crime. That he was persecuted by the Biden administration.\u201d<\/p>\n The pardon caps a monthslong effort by Zhao, a billionaire commonly known as CZ in the crypto world and one of the biggest names in the industry. He and Binance have been key supporters of some of the Trump family\u2019s crypto enterprises<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cDeeply grateful for today\u2019s pardon and to President Trump for upholding America\u2019s commitment to fairness, innovation, and justice,\u201d Zhao said on social media<\/a> Thursday.<\/p>\n Zhao\u2019s pardon is the latest move by a president who has flexed his executive power<\/a> to bestow clemency on political allies, prominent public figures and others convicted of crimes.<\/p>\n The crypto industry has also long complained it was subject to a \u201cregulation by enforcement\u201d ethos under the Biden administration. Trump\u2019s pardon of Zhao fits into a broad pattern of the his taking a hands-off approach to an industry that spent heavily to help him win the election in 2024. His administration has dropped several<\/a> enforcement actions against crypto companies that began during Biden\u2019s term and disbanded the crypto-related enforcement team<\/a> at the Justice Department.<\/p>\n Former federal prosecutor Mark Bini said Zhao went to prison for what \u201csounds like a regulatory offense, or at worst its kissing cousin.\u201d<\/p>\n Zhao was released from prison last year after receiving a four-month sentence<\/a> for violating the Bank Secrecy Act<\/a>. He was the first person ever sentenced to prison time for such violations of that law, which requires U.S. financial institutions to know who their customers are, to monitor transactions and to file reports of suspicious activity. Prosecutors said no one had ever violated the regulations to the extent Zhao did.<\/p>\n The judge in the case said he was troubled by Zhao\u2019s decision to ignore U.S. banking requirements that would have slowed the company\u2019s explosive growth.<\/p>\n In addition to taking pro-crypto enforcement and regulatory positions, the president and his family have plunged headfirst<\/a> into making money in crypto.<\/p>\n A stablecoin launched by World Liberty Financial, a crypto project founded by Trump and sons Donald Jr. and Eric, received early support and credibility thanks to an investment fund<\/a> in the United Arab Emirates using $2 billion worth of World Liberty\u2019s stablecoin to purchase a stake in Binance. Stablecoins are a type of cryptocurrency that are typically tied to the value of the U.S. dollar.<\/p>\n A separate World Liberty Finance token saw a huge spike in price Thursday shortly after news of the pardon was made public, with gains that far outpaced any other major cryptocurrency, according to data from CoinMarketCap.<\/p>\n The Associated Press contributed to this report.<\/p>\n If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement<\/a> and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and\/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Donald Trump insulted a CNN reporter Thursday who asked about his pardon of cryptocurrency exchange founder Changpeng…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":328686,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[64,7838,454,1005,80,67,132,68,2058],"class_list":{"0":"post-328685","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-diplomacy","10":"tag-government","11":"tag-horizontal","12":"tag-politics","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us","16":"tag-washington"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115428246417048336","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328685"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328685\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/328686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}