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President Donald Trump granted the pardon Changpeng Zhaothe convicted founder of crypto exchange Binance on Wednesday after months of efforts by Zhao to bolster the Trump family’s own crypto company, according to people familiar with the matter cited The Wall Street Journal.
Trump has recently indicated to advisers that he sympathizes with the political persecution arguments related to Zhao and others, one of the people said.
Zhao pleaded guilty in November 2023 to failing to maintain an effective anti-money laundering program at Binance, leading to his resignation as CEO and a $50 million fine.
Binance itself was fined $4.3 billion as part of the settlement, one of the largest corporate penalties in US history. U.S. District Judge Richard Jones sentenced Zhao to four months in prison in April 2024, far less than the 36 months requested by the Justice Department.
The pardon follows intense discussions at the White House that reportedly “sped up” in October, with financial journalist Charles Gasparino stating that “people close by“Trump told Chao”inclined to forgive” despite concerns about optics given the president’s cryptocurrency business interests.
Many Trump insiders believed that “the fraud case against Changpeng Zhao, known in the digital space simply as CZ, was pretty weak and certainly not something that merited felony charges and jail time.“
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