Khaberni - US President Donald Trump stated that he does not know who Changpeng Zhao, the founder of "Binance" and its former CEO, is despite having recently pardoned him and removed all sanctions that prevented him from managing financial projects, according to the "Ars Technica" tech report.
The report refers to an interview Trump had with a reporter from "CBS" during which Trump confirmed that he does not know who Zhao is, but all he knows is that the Biden administration had imprisoned him for 4 months after he confessed to the crime.
Trump added, "Well, are you ready? I don't know who he is, I know that he was sentenced to 4 months in prison or something like that, and I've heard that it was a fierce campaign by the Biden government."
Zhao had confessed in April 2024 to failing to maintain an adequate anti-money laundering program as required under the Bank Secrecy Act, and as a result of his guilty plea, he was sentenced to spend 4 months in prison despite American government demands to extend his prison sentence to 3 years, and Zhao was released from prison in September 2024.
Pardoning Zhao contributes to the full return of "Binance" to the US market, as the company had been relying on a separate exchange for the US market since 2019.
This is also in line with the Trump family’s tendency to invest in cryptocurrencies, as "Binance" played a prominent role in launching the "USD1" currency offered by "World Liberty," a company backed by the Trump family.
For his part, Trump clarified that his pardon of Zhao was not linked to his family’s investments in cryptocurrencies, and justified the pardon by saying, "I heard that he was a victim of an attack by a corrupt government," describing his predecessor Joe Biden as "the most corrupt president and the worst president the United States has ever known."
