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The attorney for Binance co-founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao has refuted claims that he in any way financed a pardon from US President Donald Trump.
During an appearance on Anthony Pompliano’s “Pomp Podcast” on Friday, CZ’s personal counsel Teresa Goody Guillén characterized the criticism surrounding CZ’s pardon as a “conglomerate of numerous false assertions.”
“The press persistently describes World Liberty as Trump’s organization, and I have yet to see any evidence to validate that,” she remarked, adding:
“Individuals are making these conclusions that merely exhibit a basic misunderstanding of how either business operates or how blockchain functions.”
CZ spent four months incarcerated in 2024 and was required to step away from Binance due to allegations related to a failure to implement Anti-Money Laundering measures at the firm.
The former Binance CEO was pardoned by Donald Trump in October, with the president asserting that the reasons for CZ’s imprisonment “were not criminal.”
Opponents of the decision, including Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, deemed the pardon as “corruption” because CZ “supported” one of Trump’s crypto initiatives and “advocated for a pardon.”
The former Binance CEO retorted that she was unable to get her “facts straight.”
In response to Warren’s allegations, Guillén challenged the immunity provided to US politicians, criticizing Warren for mistakenly claiming that CZ had been convicted for a crime “he wasn’t convicted of,” along with charges of added “criminal liability” pertaining to the pardon.
“This is indeed a subject I hope we pay a little more attention to because the immunity granted to these individuals is not what our founding fathers intended,” she expressed.
Pardon was “justice,” argues CZ’s attorney
During the discussion on Pompliano’s podcast, Guillén contended that CZ was “pardoned for justice,” maintaining that CZ had become a scapegoat in the battle against crypto, while highlighting the absence of prison sentences for executives in traditional finance involved in comparable legal dilemmas.
Related: CZ states he was astonished by the pardon, denies connections to Trump familyy
“He’s the sole individual who has ever faced prosecution and then worse, imprisoned for this specific accusation or anything similar with the characteristics of no fraud and no victims, devoid of any criminal history,” she noted, adding:
“I believe it was part of the war on crypto, and at that juncture, this occurred shortly after the FTX collapse; I think the war on crypto needed to target someone, hence they had to prosecute and really persecute an individual. Unfortunately, that turned out to be Binance and CZ.”
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