Overview
- Press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the clemency was reviewed by Department of Justice attorneys and the White House Counsel with what she called the utmost seriousness.
- Trump told CBS he does not know Changpeng Zhao personally, and the White House framed the case as an overreach by a politicized Justice Department under the prior administration.
- Senator Elizabeth Warren and other Democrats called for federal probes into reported financial links between Zhao or Binance and World Liberty Financial, which Binance leadership has publicly denied.
- Zhao’s 2023 guilty plea led to a four‑month sentence he served in 2024, and the pardon restores his personal rights without altering Binance’s corporate settlement or the independent compliance monitor.
- Binance.US listed World Liberty Financial tokens and defended its due‑diligence process after criticism from Senator Chris Murphy, and Zhao’s legal team threatened action over Warren’s characterization of his case.