Trump slammed by his own allies over pardon of crypto criminal

It seems that Donald Trump can’t make everyone happy, not even his crypto friends that he’s been bending over backwards for.

Trump’s recent pardoning of Binance founder and crypto guru Changpeng Zhao was met with immediate backlash from one of the President’s most prominent supporters, Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale.

In November 2023, Changpeng Zhao pled guilty to breaking the US Bank Secrecy Act after failing to monitor the transactions of users on his site, Binance.

Those failings allowed hundreds of millions of dollars to be fed through the site, funding drug deals, terrorism, child sex abuse, and human trafficking.

Federal prosecutors said they had never seen anyone violate the rules to the extent that Zhao did between 2017 and 2024. The case judge claimed to have been disturbed by Binance’s strategy of ignoring any US banking regulation that would stem the site’s growth.

When questioned, the President gave a slough of answers, from which allied and opposed media outlets could pick and choose which one aligned best with the story they’re spinning.

Trump claimed that what Zhao did was not a crime, stating, "a lot of people say that he wasn’t guilty of anything."

He tried spinning the victim story for Zhao,

"He served four months in jail, and they say that he was not guilty of anything."

He then seemed to excuse himself of any blame by placing it on an unnamed advisor, stating, “[I’ve] been told … that what he did is not even a crime”.

He continued saying, “I gave him a pardon at the request of a lot of very good people,” a statement every American should pay close attention to.

Trump claimed in 2024 that he would be the “first crypto president,” and America is already seeing what that looks like.

Lonsdale posted on X shortly after the President pardoned Zhao on Thursday, stating:

“I love President Trump; this is possibly the greatest admin of my lifetime—except for these pardons.”

He continued to say, “If I’m calling balls and strikes, these are hit-by-pitches! POTUS has been terribly advised on this; it makes it look like massive fraud is happening around him in this area.”

Once again, he deflects blame away from the president - placing it on advisors instead. He also makes sure to clarify that it only looks like fraudulent activity is surrounding the President’s crypto ventures.

Currently, the president has approximately $3.4 bn in Crypto, either attached to his fame or to the US economy itself. Trump also owns the marketplace; all of the tokens are sold and bought in, adding another layer of protection to the inner workings of the venture’s finances.

While a president selling what are essentially stocks related to his fame and the U.S. dollar is obviously a conflict of interest on many levels, the White House maintains that all actions are above board, with Karoline Leavitt claiming: "Neither the President nor his family have ever engaged, or will ever engage, in conflicts of interest."

Donald Trump has received at least $41 million since January 2025 from crypto companies, making him the first successful fascist crypto-technocrat—an impressive achievement if you’re striving for the Orwellian Hall of Fame.

Binance has been banned from use in the US since Zhao’s conviction in 2023, but the door has now been opened for questions on whether or not its status will be reinstated.

On Thursday, Trump admitted that he didn’t know who Zhao was when he granted the pardon but instead acted on the advice of “a lot of very good people.”