A New York Times investigative reporter flagged what he described as a "very unusual" arrangement in President Donald Trump's latest pardon during an interview on Thursday on CNN.

Eric Lipton joined CNN's Anderson Cooper on "AC 360" on Thursday to discuss Trump's pardon of Changpeng Zhao, the former chief executive of Binance, who was convicted on money laundering charges. Binance paid a $4.3 billion settlement for financing terrorist activities for Hamas and Al-Qaeda. Zhao also pleaded guilty to the same charges as his company and paid a $50 million fine.

Trump pardoned Zhao on Thursday, saying he was "persecuted" by the Biden administration.

Lipton told Cooper that there is a "very unusual" arrangement related to this pardon. Binance has $2 billion of stablecoins, cryptocurrencies that are tied to other assets like fiat currency or gold, in Trump's World Liberty Financial crypto venture. Trump's Middle East Envoy, Steve Witkoff, is also part of the venture.

Lipton said this setup allowed Zhao to effectively pay Trump and Witkoff while he lobbied for a pardon.

"So, not only is Trump pardoning [George] Santos and other people convicted of various crimes, but he is pardoning someone who is effectively through his business operations, making payments to him and to members of his administration," Lipton said. "It's a very unusual arrangement, really. And again, another precedent that we're seeing in American history is a direct financial connection between the individual who got that pardon and the president's family."