Trump’s Never-Ending Pardons for CriminalsI joined Senator Elizabeth Warren today to call on the Senate to stand up Trump's blatant corruption of the pardon power.Abuse of the pardon power is not new for Trump. But with Trump’s pardon of Binance’s billionaire founder, and Binance’s massive role in a Trump family crypto venture, the corruption has reached a whole new level. Today, I joined Senator Elizabeth Warren to call on the Senate to stand up to this blatant corruption of the pardon power by passing our resolution calling it out. When they did, here’s what I said: I rise today in support of Senator Warren’s resolution condemning President Trump’s decision to pardon Changpeng Zhao. Last week, President Trump once again put his wealthy allies, family members and business partners ahead of the public trust when he granted a pardon to the founder of Binance. In 2023, Mr. Zhao was sentenced to prison after his company pleaded guilty to serious crimes, including failing to prevent money laundering and letting billions of dollars flow through Binance to sanctioned regimes and criminals, to facilitate child sex abuse, drug trafficking, and terrorism. At the time, the Treasury Department estimated that Binance had allowed over one and half million currency trades that violated American sanctions, including hundreds of millions of dollars that shirked sanctions against Iran, Syria, Cuba, and Russia. For these crimes, Binance paid one of the largest fines in U.S. history – $4.3 billion in fines. And yet, after serving only a fraction of his sentence, President Trump stepped in to grant Zhao a pardon and wipe his slate clean. Why? Why do such a thing? Because Mr. Zhao is part of the wide web of financial interests tied to the President and his allies. That’s why. Including a crypto venture that poured billions into Binance. The President’s pardon came after a stablecoin from World Liberty Financial – the Trump family crypto venture – was used to purchase a $2 billion stake in Binance; marking the most significant use to date of that Trump family stablecoin and once again increasing the value of Trump family holdings. That’s not the use of a pardon to correct an injustice. That’s the use of a pardon to commit an injustice. That’s corruption of the most blatant kind. And it’s illustrative of the same message Donald Trump continues to send to his donors and friends: if you’ve got enough money or the right political connections, the law doesn’t apply to you. The President isn’t using the power of his office to ensure hungry families have access to food next month. He is not using the power of his office to make sure Americans can afford to pay for their health care. He’s using the power of his office to pardon a convicted billionaire, and one who just happens to be doing business with the Trump family crypto platform, World Liberty Financial. We have seen this story before. And this is just the latest example of the president’s use, abuse of the pardon power as a means of rewarding wealthy donors, family members and allies, and benefiting himself personally. We saw it when Trump pardoned corporate executives convicted of bribery and campaign finance crimes as a ‘thank you’ for donating millions towards to his campaign. We saw it in his first term when he pardoned operatives like Roger Stone, Paul Manafort, and Steve Bannon who helped him or his allies evade accountability. And we saw it when he issued sweeping ‘unconditional’ pardons for 1,500 individuals involved in the January 6 attack on this Capitol – including many who were convicted of violent acts against law enforcement. In fact, the President even stacked the offices tasked with reviewing pardon applications with his allies – installing Ed Martin as Pardon Attorney at the Justice Department after his failed nomination to be U.S. Attorney for D.C. In case after case after case, the message has been clear: loyalty to Donald Trump is more important than the rule of law; it is more important than anything in the public interest. This is not what the Framers intended when they gave the President the authority to grant clemency. And they certainly never envisioned it as a get-out-of-jail-free card for political allies, campaign donors, and business partners. But this Administration has turned the pardon power into a tool for corruption and self-dealing. Which is why Senator Warren and I have introduced this resolution. To shine a light on the rampant corruption of this administration, and to hold those responsible, accountable. I urge my colleagues to join us in sending a clear, bipartisan message that the U.S. government should act in the public interest, not the financial interest of the President, and that the pardon power must not be for sale. |
