All points
1966 words
- Donald Trump pardoned Binance founder Changpeng Zhao after Binance had provided financial and technical support to a Trump family business. The report investigates whether the business relationship and financial benefits to the president's family influenced the pardon.
- Changpeng Zhao is the Chinese-born founder of Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange. The Justice Department had accused him of causing “significant harm to US national security.”
- Zhao and Binance pleaded guilty in 2023 to failing to prevent money laundering on the exchange. Binance paid a $4 billion fine, while Zhao served a four-month prison sentence.
- Binance had been used to facilitate criminal financial activity, including transfers to terrorist organizations. A speaker in the report specifically names Al-Qaeda, Hamas and ISIS. The report's account of Zhao's guilty plea identifies failures to prevent money laundering, rather than a separate conviction for financing those organizations.
- Elizabeth Oyer questioned whether Zhao qualified for a presidential pardon under normal Justice Department standards. Oyer previously led the department's pardon-vetting process and told 60 Minutes that Zhao was nowhere near meeting its guidelines.
- Oyer described the financial influence and self-dealing surrounding Zhao's pardon as unprecedented. She argued that the pardon benefited Trump, his family and people in his inner circle, calling it corruption rather than justice.
- Trump made cryptocurrency a prominent part of his 2024 presidential campaign. He publicly supported the industry and announced that his family and business partners were launching their own cryptocurrency venture, World Liberty Financial (WLF).
- World Liberty Financial was presented as a bank-like business offering financial services using digital currencies. Its investment document, normally called a white paper, was branded a gold paper.
- World Liberty Financial was initially a small and relatively unsuccessful venture. Austin Campbell, a former banker who had briefed Congress on cryptocurrency, previously worked as a crypto executive and now teaches at New York University. He described the company as having a partially filled fundraising round, perhaps one or a handful of engineers, and little actual activity.
- Launching a cryptocurrency company requires substantial technical infrastructure and engineering resources. Campbell explained that a new company needs to recruit engineers and build the systems required to operate a technology business.
- Binance provided software to World Liberty Financial to help it launch a cryptocurrency. According to sources familiar with the events, this happened last fall, shortly after Zhao left prison. One source described Binance's contribution as essential, saying that without Zhao, the technology would not have existed.
- Zhao applied for a presidential pardon the month after the reported software contribution. Shortly after submitting his application, he became central to a major financial transaction that dramatically increased World Liberty Financial's importance.
- An Emirati investment fund placed $2 billion into Zhao's Binance exchange in May. Zhao is a citizen of the United Arab Emirates, and the transaction was conducted using World Liberty Financial's cryptocurrency.
- The $2 billion transaction transformed World Liberty Financial from a relatively obscure project into a major stablecoin business. The report says the transaction propelled it from a small operation to one of the world's largest stablecoins in a single move.
- The Emirati fund entrusted $2 billion to a cryptocurrency that had been available for only five weeks. One source familiar with the transaction described the decision as extraordinary, saying it was not merely unusual but effectively irrational without a political motivation.
- A source suggested that the Emirati transaction was intended to build goodwill with Trump. The source argued that ingratiating the fund with the president was the only explanation that made sense of such a large investment in a newly launched currency.
- Lawrence Lessig argued that the transaction created a potentially compromising relationship between Trump and foreign financial interests. Lessig is a Harvard law professor who has spent nearly two decades studying political ethics and has campaigned across party lines against the corrupting influence of money.
- Lessig said the problem was that the public could not determine whether administration decisions were being made for America's benefit or for the private financial benefit of Trump and his family. He considered the possibility of both motivations operating simultaneously a form of presidential compromise.
- The Emirati fund defended its choice of World Liberty Financial by citing business suitability. Its stated explanation was that the cryptocurrency was commercially appropriate for the transaction.
- Two weeks after the World Liberty Financial transaction, Trump announced an investment and technology arrangement involving the United Arab Emirates. The announcement included Emirati investment in the United States and US provision of highly restricted artificial-intelligence chips that the Emirates wanted.
- The report found no evidence connecting the proposed AI-chip arrangement directly to the $2 billion World Liberty Financial transaction. It also acknowledged that there was no clear evidence of an explicit quid pro quo between the Emirati investment and American government decisions.
- Lessig argued that political influence can operate through informal financial relationships without an explicit bribery agreement. He described a culture of giving and exchanging in which a foreign government can direct substantial money into a president's private business without openly demanding anything in return.
- Lessig illustrated how foreign governments could use private financial investments as an additional means of influencing American policy. Rather than relying solely on diplomatic arguments, a government could invest billions in a business financially benefiting the president and his family, creating a relationship that ordinary Americans could reasonably view as corrupting.
- Binance left the $2 billion deposited in World Liberty Financial. The report said the money could potentially generate approximately $80 million in annual interest for Trump and his business partners.
- The $2 billion represented most of World Liberty Financial's deposits. This concentration gave Zhao and Binance considerable financial leverage over the Trump family venture.
- A source described Zhao as having the power to determine whether World Liberty Financial survived. The source said Zhao effectively held a sword over the company's head because of its dependence on the Binance-related funds.
- Trump signed Zhao's full and unconditional presidential pardon on October 21. The pardon was not publicly announced at the time and became known only after it leaked two days later.
- Trump appeared unfamiliar with Zhao's identity when questioned about the pardon. He initially referred to him as the cryptocurrency person and said he did not know his name or believe he had ever met him.
- Trump defended the pardon by claiming Zhao had done nothing that deserved criminal punishment. He said he had been told Zhao was not guilty of anything, had served four months in prison and had been persecuted by the Biden administration.
- Trump said he granted Zhao's pardon following requests from people he considered very good. He did not identify those individuals or explain their relationship with Zhao.
- Trump had previously denied knowing about the Emirati fund's $2 billion World Liberty Financial transaction. When questioned about it in May, he said he knew nothing about the deal while reiterating his enthusiasm for cryptocurrency.
- The White House denied that Trump or his family had engaged in conflicts of interest. Its statement said neither the president nor his family had participated in such conflicts.
- Eric Trump, a co-founder of World Liberty Financial, said his father had nothing to do with the company. This was the family's stated position regarding the president's involvement in the business.
- Trump's business interests are held in a trust operated by his family. The report questioned whether this arrangement genuinely protects the president from conflicts of interest when his family continues operating businesses that financially benefit him.
- Constitutional scholar Michael Gerhardt argued that a family-operated trust does not eliminate presidential conflicts of interest. Gerhardt, who has advised members of both political parties in Congress and teaches at the University of North Carolina, said the president does not need to manage a business personally to know that he is benefiting financially from it.
- Gerhardt argued that the benefits to Trump's family were not equivalent to benefits to the American public. He described the arrangement as a classic conflict of interest of the kind the Constitution was designed to prevent.
- Gerhardt identified divided loyalties as a central problem. Investors who have put money into Trump's family business have financial interests in keeping the family satisfied, potentially creating competing obligations for a president responsible for serving the public.
- Gerhardt raised an additional concern about the use of public resources to promote Trump's private business. He argued that the president was using the authority and resources of his office, including federal tax dollars, to help promote a business from which his family benefited.
- Neither Binance nor World Liberty Financial agreed to an interview with 60 Minutes. Both organizations declined the programme's request to discuss the transactions and pardon.
- An attorney representing Zhao and Binance denied that Binance provided technical support or other resources to World Liberty Financial. The attorney said neither Zhao nor Binance supplied technical support, personnel or any other resources.
- World Liberty Financial's lawyers acknowledged that Binance had provided software but disputed the significance of the contribution. They described it as freely available software supplied simply to save World Liberty Financial time.
- World Liberty Financial's lawyers denied that the company had contacted Trump about Zhao's pardon. They also said World Liberty Financial played no role in securing the presidential pardon.
- The report placed Zhao's pardon alongside other controversial presidential pardons. It cited President Joe Biden's pardon of his son, who had been convicted of tax and gun crimes, and President Bill Clinton's pardon of financier Mark Rich.
- Mark Rich's former wife had donated more than $1 million to Democratic causes before Clinton pardoned him. The example illustrated previous controversies involving financial relationships and presidential clemency.
- Elizabeth Oyer said she was fired in March after refusing to approve a Trump administration request concerning actor Mel Gibson. The request sought to restore Gibson's gun rights following his conviction for domestic battery.
- Oyer believes the Trump administration is using presidential pardons as rewards for friends, political allies and donors. Her criticism extends beyond Zhao's case to what she sees as a broader pattern in the administration's use of clemency.
- Dozens of people involved in different aspects of the investigation provided information to the reporters but declined on-camera interviews. According to the programme, they feared possible retaliation.
- An interviewee told Scott Pelley that concern for America's future motivated speaking out. The interviewee described presidential pardon powers as a solemn responsibility entrusted by the country's founders for the public good and expressed concern that Trump was selling off pieces of American democracy.
- Lessig argued that the combination of unlimited campaign money and the Trump administration's private financial interests represents an unprecedented level of political corruption. He distinguished longstanding institutional corruption caused by money in politics from the additional possibility of private financial interests influencing decisions inside the executive branch.
- Lessig described the mixture of private financial interests and public policy as an especially extreme form of corruption. He argued that the situation had reached a level not previously seen in American government.
- Lessig warned that these relationships could further undermine public confidence in American government. He said Americans across Republican, Democratic and independent political identities increasingly viewed the system as corrupt, placing the country in jeopardy.
- Changpeng Zhao declined 60 Minutes' request for an interview. In a brief appearance on Fox News, he said he did not have a business relationship with any of Trump's sons.
- Binance still held approximately $2 billion in Trump family's World Liberty Financial at the time of the report. The continued presence of that money meant the financial relationship remained active even after Trump's pardon of Zhao.