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Last month, President Trump granted a pardon to a billionaire felon, after the felon's company enriched a Trump family business. The pardon went to , a Chinese-born businessman, who was accused by the Justice Department of causing, quote, "...significant harm to U.S. national security…" The president says he does not know Zhao. Our reporting shows that Zhao's company supported a Trump family firm at critical moments leading up to the president's pardon.
Changpeng Zhao is founder of Binance, the world's largest exchange for cryptocurrency or digital money on the internet. In 2023, Zhao and his company pled guilty to failing to prevent money laundering on binance. Binance paid a $4 billion fine. Zhao served a four month sentence.
Elizabeth Oyer: He's one of the richest men in the world. And he was essentially allowing his company to be used as a platform to finance criminal activity, to send money to terrorist organizations, Al-Qaeda, Hamas, ISIS and he was prosecuted criminally for that.
Elizabeth Oyer knows pardons. She was in charge of vetting pardon applications at the Justice Department. She's been a critic of the Trump administration since she was replaced last spring by a Trump loyalist. Oyer told us Zhao wasn't close to meeting Justice Department guidelines for a pardon.
Scott Pelley: You would describe this pardon as unusual?
Elizabeth Oyer: The influence that money played in securing this pardon is unprecedented. The self-dealing aspect of the pardon in terms of the benefit that it conferred on President Trump, and his family, and people in his inner circle is also unprecedented.
Scott Pelley: Is this justice?
Elizabeth Oyer: This is absolutely not justice. This is corruption.
In the 2024 campaign, Donald Trump offered full-throated support for the crypto industry. And, online, he, his family and partners announced they were opening a crypto firm of their own.
Trump World Liberty Financial promo: We're embracing the future with crypto and leaving the slow and outdated big banks behind that's what we wanna do. Go to World Liberty Financial dot com.
World Liberty Financial would be like a bank offering financial services in digital currencies. Its pitch to investors usually called a "white paper" was gilded as a "gold paper."
Scott Pelley: When World Liberty Financial launched before the election, was it a big success?
Austin Campbell: It was largely unknown. They had had a fundraising round that had only been partially filled. They had a team that I think only had one, or maybe a handful of engineers at best, and honestly not much was going on there.
Austin Campbell is a former banker who's briefed Congress on crypto. He was a crypto executive and now teaches at New York University.
Scott Pelley: If you're starting a crypto company from scratch, what are the technical hurdles?
Austin Campbell: You need to hire engineers, you need to deploy all of the infrastructure that you'll need, essentially, to run a tech company.
Enter Changpeng Zhao, last fall, fresh out of prison. Sources tell us Zhao's company, Binance, donated software to World Liberty to help the Trump family venture launch a cryptocurrency. A source familiar with events told us, without Zhao, quote, "the technology doesn't exist."
The next month, Changpeng Zhao applied for a presidential pardon. And shortly after the application, he was at the center of a blockbuster deal that put World Liberty on the map. Zhao is a citizen of the United Arab Emirates in the Persian Gulf and in May, an Emirati fund put $2 billion in Zhao's Binance. Of all the currencies in the world, the deal was done in World Liberty crypto.
Austin Campbell: So it took World Liberty from being a small project that maybe was on the road map after the election, purely for the name, to being one of the largest stablecoins in the world in a single transaction. So, it vaulted them from small time to the big leagues.
The Emirates entrusted two billion to a currency that had been on the market five weeks. One source told us, "it wasn't strange. It was nuts."
Lawrence Lessig: The only reason it makes sense is to ingratiate with the president.
Lawrence Lessig has spent nearly 20 years on ethics in politics. He teaches law at Harvard and has campaigned with the left and the right against the corrupting influence of money.
Scott Pelley: Are you saying that the president is compromised by this transaction?
Lawrence Lessig: "Compromised" is exactly the description because we can't know what's the actual reason for the decisions that the administration is making. Are the reasons helping America, or are the reasons helping America and also helping them privately?
The Emiratis told us they chose World Liberty for, quote, "business suitability." Last May, two weeks after their World Liberty deal, Trump announced that the Emirates would invest in America and the U.S. would provide something the Emiratis coveted — highly restricted chips for artificial intelligence. There's no evidence that the chips are related to the two billion in World Liberty crypto.
Lawrence Lessig: There's no clear evidence of quid pro quo. But there wouldn't be. Nobody is so stupid as to conduct themselves with that explicit structure. Instead, it's the culture of giving and exchanging in a much more informal way that we clearly know is happening right now.
Scott Pelley: What does it mean to U.S. foreign policy?
Lawrence Lessig: If you're a reasonable, rational foreign government, and you're asking, "How do we get the Americans to do what we wanna have them do?" Before this administration what you would have to do is to make a good argument. Now you have another option. "There's also the $2 billion that I've channeled into your private bank-like entity. And I'm not saying that I'm bribing you. I'm not saying that you owe me anything because of that. I just want you to know that that's what I've done." Look, any ordinary American would understand why that's a corrupting relationship. Anybody would get it.
There's another important point about the Emirati deal. Zhao's Binance left the $2 billion deposited in World Liberty Financial. That money could be earning interest for the Trump's and their partners of $80 million a year. Also, two billion represents most of World Liberty's deposits.
One source told us, Zhao, quote, "now controls whether [World Liberty] dies or lives. He has a sword over their head." Last month, October 21st, President Trump signed the "full and unconditional pardon" for Changpeng Zhao. The pardon was not announced. But, two days later, when it leaked, Trump didn't seem to know Zhao's name.
President Trump (at Homeland Security roundtable, 10/23/25): Are you talking about the crypto person?
Reporter: Yes
President Trump (at Homeland Security roundtable, 10/23/25): A lot of people say that he wasn't guilty of anything. He served four months in jail, and they say that he was not guilty of anything, that--
Reporter: He admitted to his crimes--
President Trump (at Homeland Security roundtable, 10/23/25):--what he did. Well, you don't know much about crypto. You know nothing about- You know nothing about nothing. You fake news. But let me just tell you that he was somebody that as I was told, I don't know him. I don't believe I've ever met him, but I've been told by ---a lot of support, he had a lot of support, and they said that what he did is not even a crime, it wasn't a crime that he was persecuted by the Biden administration and so I gave him a pardon at the request of a lot of very good people.
Last May, he was asked about the Emirates $2 billion World Liberty deal.
President Trump (on Air Force 1 on 5/14/25): I don't know anything about it. I really don't know anything about it. But I'm a big crypto fan, I will tell you, I've been that from the beginning, right from the campaign.
The White House told us, quote, "neither the president nor his family has engaged in conflicts of interest." Eric Trump, co-founder of World Liberty, has said, "my father has nothing to do with our company."
Scott Pelley: The president's businesses are in a trust that is operated by his family.
Michael Gerhardt: Right
Scott Pelley: Isn't that enough to shield him from charges of self-dealing?
Michael Gerhardt: Not at all. The president doesn't have to be involved day-to-day in order to know that he's benefiting financially.
Michael Gerhardt is a constitutional scholar consulted by both parties in congress. He teaches at the University of North Carolina.
Michael Gerhardt: All those things benefit Trump and Trump family. They do not benefit the people of the United States so that makes it a classic example of a conflict of interest the Constitution is designed to prevent.
Scott Pelley: Is that really a harm to the country?
Michael Gerhardt: Absolutely. He has divided loyalties he's got people who have invested in his business he wants to keep happy. But there's also the additional problem that the president is using his office and the resources of his office in other words our money, federal tax dollars to help promote that business.
Neither World Liberty nor Binance agreed to an interview. In an email, an attorney for Zhao and Binance says that neither provided "…technical support, personnel, or any other resources..." But World Liberty lawyers did admit Binance provided what they call "freely available" software "…simply to save WLF [World Liberty] from wasting time…" World Liberty's lawyers say that the company "…has never contacted the president about Mr. Zhao…" and "…did not play a role in Mr. Zhao's recent presidential pardon."
Zhao's isn't the only controversial pardon. President Biden pardoned his son, convicted of tax and gun crimes. President Clinton pardoned the financier Marc Rich after Rich's ex-wife donated more than a million dollars to Democratic causes. Liz Oyer, former head of pardons at the Justice Department told us that she was fired in March after she refused to sign off on a Trump administration request to restore gun rights to the actor Mel Gibson who was convicted of domestic battery. In Oyer's view, the administration is using pardons as rewards for friends, allies and donors.
Scott Pelley: We have talked to dozens of people who are involved in all aspects of this. And they have informed our reporting but have declined to sit down for an interview on 60 Minutes for fear of retribution. And I wonder why you are doing this.
Elizabeth Oyer: I am very worried, Scott, about the future of our country. This president appears to be selling off pieces of our democracy. And the presidential pardon power is a solemn instrument of the presidency that the founders of our country entrusted to the president with the idea that he would use it for the public good.
Harvard law professor, Lawrence Lessig, says unlimited money in political campaigns and now, the Trump administration, have taken the country where it's never been.
Lawrence Lessig: Look, there's always been money in politics, but there's never been money at the level that you have it today. And now in addition to that kind of institutional corruption, there is a legitimate fear that there's a private form of corruption going on inside of the executive branch because of the mixture of private financial interests and public policy. This is the most extreme it's ever been. And America is in jeopardy because of that because we already have a public that has lost faith in our government. Because all of us, whether Republican or Democrat or Independent, look at this system and say, "this is a corrupt system."
Changpeng Zhao didn't respond to our request for an interview. In a brief appearance on FOX News, he said, quote, "I do not have a business relationship with any of the sons of President Trump." Zhao's Binance still has about $2 billion in the Trump family's World Liberty Financial.
Produced by Maria Gavrilovic. Associate producers, Madeleine Carlisle and Georgia Rosenberg. Broadcast associate, Michelle Karim. News associate, Ava Peabody. Edited by Peter M. Berman.
