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Former Binance chief executive Changpeng Zhao has rejected claims of secret ties to US President Donald Trump or his family, describing his October presidential pardon as unexpected and unrelated to any business dealings.
In a recent Fox News interview, Zhao said he had never met Trump and had not conducted business with the president or his relatives. He recalled only one brief encounter with Eric Trump at a Bitcoin conference in Abu Dhabi and said that the meeting did not involve any discussions about Binance or pardons.
Zhao stated that his legal team filed a clemency petition in April and that he received no updates before the pardon arrived. He called the decision “a surprise” and stressed that “there is no business relationship between me, Binance, and World Liberty Finance,” the Trump-linked crypto venture also known as World Liberty Financial.
The former Binance CEO previously pleaded guilty in 2023 to failing to maintain an effective anti-money-laundering program at the exchange, a violation of the Bank Secrecy Act. He served four months in prison and paid a $50 million fine, while Binance agreed to multi-billion-dollar penalties in a separate settlement with U.S. authorities.
Trump has framed the pardon as part of a broader shift in US crypto policy. In an interview on CBS’s “60 Minutes,” he said he did not know Zhao personally and portrayed the prosecution as a “Biden witch hunt.” He added that he relied on advisers who claimed Zhao’s conduct should not count as a crime.
The White House echoed that line. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt argued that Biden-era prosecutors targeted Zhao as part of a “war on cryptocurrency” and that Trump used his constitutional authority to correct an overreach. She said the administration wants the United States to lead the global digital-asset sector.
Democratic lawmakers have responded with sharp criticism. Representative Maxine Waters and Senator Elizabeth Warren, joined by other Democrats including Senator Bernie Sanders, have called for investigations into whether the pardon was tied to business interests around World Liberty Financial and its stablecoin projects. They sent an open letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi requesting records related to contacts among Trump, Zhao, Binance, and Trump-linked crypto ventures.
Lawmakers point to reports that Binance or its partners discussed using a Trump-branded stablecoin for a multibillion-dollar investment from an Abu Dhabi firm into Binance itself. They argue that such links raise the risk of a “pay-to-play” arrangement, even as Zhao flatly denies any deal.
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The controversy has also moved into the legal and political arena through a clash between Zhao and Warren. After Trump granted the pardon, Warren wrote on X that Zhao had pleaded guilty to breaking anti-money-laundering laws and called the pardon “corruption.” Zhao’s attorney demanded a retraction and suggested the senator had defamed him.
Warren’s lawyer rejected that threat and said any defamation claim would lack merit. He argued that public records show Zhao admitted violating AML rules and that Warren did not accuse him of a different crime, such as direct money laundering. According to the response, her statements about the Binance founder and the Trump pardon rested on accurate characterizations of the case.
Despite the political storm, Binance remains the world’s largest crypto exchange by trading volume, and reports suggest the company is exploring ways to re-enter the US market after Zhao’s pardon. The clemency lifts personal restrictions on Zhao’s ability to run financial ventures, but regulators have not signaled how it might affect the exchange’s long-term status in the United States.
