Trump: Pro-crypto or
Pro-crime?
Or are they the same thing?
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On one side, the Trump administration is sinking small boats that it
claims, without evidence, are smuggling drugs — and according to the Washington Post, Pete Hegseth, the self-styled
Secretary of War, has personally ordered at least one follow-up strike to kill
the survivors. A working group of former JAGs, that is, members of the
military’s legal branch, issued a statement declaring that it
unanimously considers both the giving and the execution of these orders,
if true, to constitute war crimes, murder, or both.
On the other side, Donald Trump has declared his intention to grant “a Full and
Complete Pardon” to Juan Orlando Hernández, a former president of Honduras who
has been convicted of conspiring to import cocaine into the United States. In fact, Hernandez was part of a cartel, including his brother,
that smuggled hundreds of tons of cocaine into this country.
At first glance, the
juxtaposition seems bizarre – Trump is either murdering or committing war
crimes against people who are at worst small-time drug smugglers, and may be
innocent fishermen, while pardoning a drug lord who was responsible for
thousands of American deaths while savaging his own country, Honduras. But
there is a pattern to this murderous madness, once one connects the dots
between Trump’s mob-boss persona and the billionaire crypto/tech broligarchy.
First, understand that
Trump’s vendetta against purported penny-ante drug smugglers is all about
dominance display, an exhibition of his ability to order violence. The real
object may be to set the stage for invadingVenezuela.
Second, while Trump is clearly willing to inflict gratuitous suffering on
the little people, he positively revels in his association with big-time
criminals, whether it’s Putin; or Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who
had a critical journalist dismembered with a bone saw; or Ross Ulbricht, creator of
Silk Road, an underground e-marketplace known for drug trafficking, whom Trump pardoned
immediately after assuming office; or Larry Hoover, a Chicago crime boss, who
was sentenced to several lifetimes in prison for leading the Gangster
Disciples, also pardoned by Trump. Yes, Trump really and truly
cares about crime in Chicago.
Still, why would Trump, whose poll numbers are cratering, generate
even more negative headlines by pardoning Hernández, who was duly convicted of
conspiring to send more than 400 tons (!) of cocaine to
America?
The answer is the
influence of the crypto/tech broligarchy. In fact, many of Trump’s pardons of
the most egregious criminals are closely linked to their influence.
A case in point is Ulbricht, whose Silk Road was an early example of what
is still the main non-speculative use of Bitcoin: facilitating criminal
activity. Ross Ulbricht was a darling of the tech-libertarian crowd, which
includes Peter Thiel, arguably the godfather of Silicon Valley and whose
financial backing was critical to JD Vance’s senate win. Trump first promised
to pardon Ulbricht in 2024, as part of a pitch to win the votes of libertarians:
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Trump at the Libertarian
Party national conference in 2024, where he promised to pardon Ulbricht
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A closeup: This is an
anarchist symbol
Whatever libertarians were in the past, they are now an extremist party,
opposed to laws against drug smuggling, money laundering, any type of
prudential government regulation, and – in the case of Thiel – opposed to democracy itself. It should not go unnoticed
that Trump saluted a party that proclaims “Become Ungovernable” as its guiding
principle, written with the anarchy a-symbol.
Next, Trump’s pardon of Changpeng Zhao, aka CZ, the former CEO of the
cryptocurrency exchange Binance, fits the same pattern. CZ pled guilty to
charges of violating U.S. laws against money-laundering and was fined $50
million, in addition to a fine of $4.3 billion against Binance. Under CZ,
Binance was a major channel of worldwide money laundering. As one report put it, prosecutors charged
that Binance
intentionally and purposefully ignored the transfer of money from
countries and areas that are subject to sanctions -- including Syria, Iran,
Cuba, Russia-occupied Crimea and the Donbas region in Ukraine. There was also
trading that involved the criminal dark-web market Hydra.
And the story continues. Last week
The families of 300 U.S. citizens hurt or killed in the Oct. 7 attack on
Israel sued Binance, claiming the cryptocurrency exchange aided Hamas and other
terrorist groups by transferring more than $1 billion among accounts they
controlled.
However, in the world of
radical libertarians, of the crypto/tech broligarchy, CZ’s crimes weren’t real
crimes because crypto is designed to “free” us from the pernicious oversight of
government. Yes, Trump really cares about stopping terrorism.
Finally, why pardon
Hernández? What’s the connection to the crypto/tech broligarchy? It’s called
Próspera.
Próspera is a for-profit city being built off
Honduras’s coast. Its charter largely exempts the island from Honduran law.
Instead, the city is run by a governing structure that for the most part gives
control to a corporation, Honduras Próspera Inc., which is in turn funded by a
familiar list of Silicon Valley billionaires including Thiel, Sam Altman and
Marc Andreesen.
So while the city is
being marketed as a libertarian paradise, it’s best seen as an autonomous
oligarchy, government of, by and for billionaires. And you won’t be surprised
to learn that within Próspera, Bitcoin is legal tender.
The 2013 Honduran law
that made the creation of Próspera possible was initially ruled
unconstitutional by the Honduran Supreme Court. But that ruling was reversed
after Juan Orlando Hernández’s predecessor, Porfirio Lobo Sosa, managed to
dismiss 4 of the court’s justices. Like Hernández, Sosa was a right-winger, who
became president after a populist president, Manuel Zelaya, was overthrown by a
military coup. Under both Hernández and Sosa, chaos reigned – corruption,
criminal gangs, and drugs overran the country. The current president, Zelaya’s
wife, has tried to claw back some sovereignty over Próspera, which has struck
back with a mammoth lawsuit that could bankrupt the country.
Yesterday Honduras held an election in which Trump backed Nasry Asfura, a
member of the same right-wing party as Hernández. Early results show the governing
left-wing party well behind, but Asfura in a virtual tie with another
right-wing candidate.
In any case, the point
is that while Trump threatens and fulminates against Maduro in Venezuela, he is
openly backing the Honduran political party that has allowed massive drug
smuggling into the U.S. Why? The only logical answer is because of the influence
of the crypto/tech broligarchy and their interests in Próspera.
So the announced pardon
of Hernández for drug smuggling isn’t really a departure from the pardons of
Binance’s Changpeng Zhao for money laundering or Silk Road’s Ross Ulbricht for
facilitating illicit drug sales. In each case what’s being upheld is the principle
that lawlessness in the pursuit of tech billionaires’ interests is no vice. In
fact, it’s to be encouraged.
And Trump, whose only
principles appear to be self-enrichment and vindictiveness, is happy to go
along.
