Critics on Sunday slammed President Donald Trump for claiming he doesn’t know Changpeng Zhao, the Binance cryptocurrency exchange founder he pardoned less than two weeks ago.
In an interview with Trump that aired Sunday, “60 Minutes” correspondent Norah O’Donnell pointed out that Zhao was convicted in 2023 of violating anti-money-laundering laws.
“The government at the time said that C.Z. had caused ‘significant harm to U.S. national security,’ essentially by allowing terrorist groups like Hamas to move millions of dollars around,” she noted. “Why did you pardon him?”
“OK, are you ready?” Trump replied. “I don’t know who he is. I know he got a four-month sentence or something like that. And I heard it was a Biden witch hunt.”
CBS cut a good chunk of the Zhao conversation from its edited broadcast, including a contentious back-and-forth between the pair, as reported by The New Republic. (You can watch the full “60 Minutes” interview here.)
U.S. officials had accused Binance of failing to report suspicious activity, including transactions linked to Hamas, al Qaeda and websites known to distribute child porn, according to Reuters.
Zhao stepped down as head of the company and pleaded guilty to failing to maintain an effective anti-money-laundering program.
He paid a $50 million fine and served four months in prison, while the company paid $4 billion in penalties.
But critics say there’s another reason Trump should know Zhao: Binance this year helped support the Trump family’s highly profitable foray into crypto, and did so again days after the pardon.
Trump deflected on that as well when asked about the “appearance of pay for play.”
“Here’s the thing: I know nothing about it,” he said. “My sons are into it.”
He added that his sons are “not in government.”
The president’s critics also noted that Trump and his allies have railed against former President Joe Biden’s use of an autopen while in office as proof he didn’t know who he was pardoning and that any actions he signed by autopen ― including those pardons ― should be invalid.
“In other words, Joe Biden did not sign them but, more importantly, he did not know anything about them!” Trump wrote on social media earlier this year.
Now, Trump has admitted he didn’t know whom he was pardoning himself ― and plenty of people called him out over it: