In 2023, Zhao pled guilty to violating U.S. anti-money laundering laws, after the Treasury Department found Binance failed to block crypto transactions associated with ISIS, Al Qaeda, Hamas, and other blacklisted groups. In ongoing and tense negotiations over a pending crypto market structure bill, national security guarantees have emerged as a key concern of Senate Democrats.
The pardon of Zhao, crypto’s wealthiest man, also hits on another sensitive nerve in Democratic circles: allegations of rampant conflicts of interest and unprecedented self-enrichment in the current White House.
Binance was central to the most lucrative deal yet pulled off by the Trump family’s crypto platform, World Liberty Financial, earlier this year. World Liberty’s stablecoin, USD1, was used as the vehicle for a $2 billion investment in Binance by a UAE-backed firm. President Trump and his sons have significant personal investments in World Liberty, and Zhao remains Binance’s largest shareholder, despite stepping down from running the company after facing criminal charges.
“The President’s announcement last week that he was pardoning Zhao followed months of an increasingly intertwined business relationship between Zhao and the Trump family,” Warren and Schiff wrote in their letter to senators today. “Congress must act to stop public officials, including the president and his family, from such blatant corruption and influence-peddling.”
Today’s letter also alluded to the fact that, immediately following the revelation of Zhao’s pardon on Thursday, World Liberty’s native token, WLFI, surged over 15% in value.
While displeasure at Zhao’s pardon may be widespread, particularly among Democrats, it is unlikely that a symbolic resolution denouncing the presidential action will have any chance of passage in the Senate. Given Republican control of the chamber, Warren and Schiff plan to pass the measure by unanimous consent, meaning it would take only a single Republican senator’s protest to prevent it from receiving a full vote.
decrypt.co
