President Donald Trump’s decision to pardon a money-laundering crypto billionaire who has helped enrich the Trump family surprised even the president’s own advisers.

The president pardoned Binance founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao last week on the advice of “a lot of very good people” who said that “what he did is not even a crime,” Trump told reporters.

Zhao had pleaded guilty in 2023 to violating anti-money-laundering rules after Binance allowed Iranian crypto exchanges, Russian drug traffickers, Hamas militants, and other criminal groups to move billions of dollars through the platform.

After Trump was elected, though, Binance formed a high-level task force to figure out how to funnel money to the Trump family’s nascent crypto venture, World Liberty Financial, in a bid to secure a pardo

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