President Donald Trump insulted a CNN reporter Thursday who asked about his pardon of cryptocurrency exchange founder Changpeng Zhao.
CNN anchor and chief Washington correspondent Kaitlan Collins asked Trump whether Zhao’s involvement with the president’s family’s crypto business was a factor in issuing the pardon.
“A lot of people say that he wasn’t guilty of anything. He served four months in jail and they say that he was not guilty of anything,” Trump said.
“That what he did — well, you don’t know much about crypto,” Trump told Collins, “you know nothing about nothing. You’re fake news.
“But let me just tell you,” Trump continued, “that he was somebody that, as I was told … that what he did is not even a crime, wasn’t even a crime. That he was persecuted by the Biden administration.”
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’s crypto enterprises.
“Deeply grateful for today’s pardon and to President Trump for upholding America’s commitment to fairness, innovation, and justice,” Zhao said on social media Thursday.
Zhao’s pardon is the latest move by a president who has flexed his executive power to bestow clemency on political allies, prominent public figures and others convicted of crimes.
The crypto industry has also long complained it was subject to a “regulation by enforcement” ethos under the Biden administration. Trump’s 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 enforcement actions against crypto companies that began during Biden’s term and disbanded the crypto-related enforcement team at the Justice Department.
Former federal prosecutor Mark Bini said Zhao went to prison for what “sounds like a regulatory offense, or at worst its kissing cousin.”
Zhao was released from prison last year after receiving a four-month sentence for violating the Bank Secrecy Act. 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.
The judge in the case said he was troubled by Zhao’s decision to ignore U.S. banking requirements that would have slowed the company’s explosive growth.
In addition to taking pro-crypto enforcement and regulatory positions, the president and his family have plunged headfirst into making money in crypto.
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 in the United Arab Emirates using $2 billion worth of World Liberty’s 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.
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.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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