Trump pardons convicted Binance founder Changpeng Zhao

[ancianita]

7. And who was the Attorney General in charge of the DOJ that made that happen?

Last edited Thu Oct 23, 2025, 11:22 PM - Edit history (1)

When Zhao was first prosecuted a couple of years ago, the federal case was a joint effort launched by the Justice Department, the Treasury Department, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, which collectively argued that Binance became the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange “in part because of the crimes it committed.”....

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https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/binance-and-ceo-plead-guilty-federal-charges-4b-resolution#:~:text=“Changpeng%20Zhao%20made%20Binance%2C%20the,crimes%20in%20the%20United%20States.”

“Binance became the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange in part because of the crimes it committed – now it is paying one of the largest corporate penalties in U.S. history,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. “In just the past month, the Justice Department has successfully prosecuted the CEOs of two of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges in two separate criminal cases. The message here should be clear: using new technology to break the law does not make you a disruptor, it makes you a criminal.”

Binance/Zhao let state terrorist extremists transact on its platform, and now Zhao's working AI into his crypto schemes

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/30/technology/binance-founder-changpeng-zhao-sentenced.html

...In November, Binance agreed to pay $4.3 billion to several U.S. agencies, including the Justice Department, to settle charges that it had permitted terrorist organizations like Hamas, the Islamic State and Al Qaeda to use its platform. Prosecutors said that, under Mr. Zhao’s watch, Binance had refused to comply with American sanctions, allowing access to customers in countries like Iran, Syria and Cuba. The company also failed to report suspicious transactions involving narcotics and child sexual abuse materials, the government said...

In court filings last week, prosecutors said Mr. Zhao’s crime carried a sentence of 12 to 18 months in prison under federal guidelines. But they asked Judge Jones to impose a three-year term, arguing that he had violated the law “on an unprecedented scale.”

“This wasn’t a mistake — it wasn’t a regulatory oops,” Kevin Mosley, a lawyer in the Justice Department’s money-laundering section, said in court on Tuesday. “Breaking U.S. law was not incidental to his plan to make as much money as possible. Violating the law was integral to that endeavor.”...

Since his guilty plea, Mr. Zhao has remained in the United States, after Judge Jones rejected his request to return home to Dubai before the sentencing. He has spent the last few months traveling across the country, including to New York, Los Angeles and Telluride, Colo.
Mr. Zhao has already laid the groundwork for his next act. He has networked with other entrepreneurs and unveiled an online education platform called Giggle Academy, which he said would involve artificial intelligence...