#19 Around the time of the election, [Binance founder ChangPeng] Zhao's representatives began discussions with allies of Trump, saying they wanted to find a solution to Binance's legal troubles in the U.S. and offering a deal with a Trump family business, according to people familiar with the discussions.
Once Trump won, Binance formed a high-level task force to strike a deal with the Trumps' nascent cryptocurrency venture, World Liberty Financial, that Binance could leverage into clemency for Zhao, other people familiar with the matter said.
This spring, Binance took steps that catapulted the Trump family venture's new stablecoin product, enhancing its credibility and pushing its market capitalization up from $127 million to over $2.1 billion.
Trump granted Zhao a presidential pardon last week, likely paving the way for the world's largest crypto-trading platform to return to the U.S., from where it was banned after the company pleaded guilty in 2023 to violating anti-money-laundering rules. At the time, the government said Zhao had caused "significant harm to U.S. national security" by allowing sanctioned Iranian crypto exchanges, Russian drug-traffickers, Hamas militants and other criminal groups to move billions of dollars through the exchange.
The bottom-line (as if there is a bottom):
The pardon marks the most distinct instance yet of Trump using the powers of his office to benefit someone at the center of deals that have enriched his family.
No sh*t.