"I Don't Know Who He Is": Trump's Pardon of Crypto Kingpin CZ is the Most Predictable Farce of the Year
“Okay, are you ready? I don’t know who he is.”
I had to rewind the clip. There he was, former President Trump, staring down Norah O'Donnell on 60 Minutes with the kind of dead-eyed sincerity that only a man who has spent a lifetime selling condos with his name in gold letters can muster. He was talking about Changpeng Zhao, the crypto multi-billionaire better known as "CZ," founder of the world's largest crypto exchange, Binance. A man he had just pardoned.
"No idea who he is," Trump repeated, for effect.
And in that moment, the entire charade of modern politics and the crypto gold rush crystallized into one perfect, soul-crushing soundbite. It’s a performance so brazen, so utterly contemptuous of our collective intelligence, that you almost have to admire the sheer nerve. Almost. This isn't just a political maneuver; it’s a middle finger to the very idea that facts matter.
Because let's be real. Claiming you don't know the guy you just sprung from the consequences of enabling money laundering—a guy whose prosecution, your own government argued, involved "significant harm to US national security"—is a bold play. But it’s a lie. A sloppy, easily disproven lie. And the fact that they don't even care that we know it's a lie? That’s the real story.
The Wink, The Nod, and The Trump Tower Address
You don’t have to be an investigative journalist to connect these dots. You just need a functioning internet connection and a tolerance for absurdity. Trump claims ignorance, yet CZ's companies have partnered with firms directly linked to the Trump family. I'm talking about Dominari Holdings, a company that literally lists Trump's sons on its board of advisers and is based in, you guessed it, Trump Tower.
It’s a masterclass in gaslighting. No, 'masterclass' is too generous—it’s the political equivalent of a toddler with chocolate smeared on his face swearing he didn’t touch the cake. We’re all just supposed to ignore the evidence right in front of our faces. We're supposed to believe that the pardon of a man whose company is now involved in a $2 billion investment deal with a stablecoin launched by the Trump family's own crypto firm is just… a coincidence.
This is the kind of cozy, back-scratching arrangement that crypto was supposedly created to destroy. Remember that? The whole decentralization pitch? The promise of a system free from the whims of powerful men cutting deals in smoke-filled rooms? What a joke that turned out to be. Instead, we’ve just recreated the same old swamp, but with more NFTs and a blockchain-powered veneer of legitimacy.
So why the charade? Why not just own it and say, "Yeah, he's a friend, and I'm helping him out"? Is it because admitting you're pardoning a guy whose company is intertwined with your family's business ventures just sounds a little too much like something out of a banana republic playbook?
It's Not a "War on Crypto," It's a War on Accountability
The official White House line, dutifully recited by Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, is that CZ's prosecution was part of the Biden administration's "war on cryptocurrency." This was an "overly prosecuted case," she claimed, and the pardon was meant to "correct this overreach."
Let me translate that for you: "Our guy got caught breaking the law, and we're mad about it."
This ain't about 'correcting misjustice'. It's about rewarding friends, offcourse. This isn't some noble defense of a burgeoning technology. It’s a get-out-of-jail-free card for the rich and connected. And CZ isn't the first. Trump also pardoned the founders of the BitMEX exchange, who faced similar money laundering charges. He pardoned Ross Ulbricht, the creator of the Silk Road dark web drug market. He halted a fraud case against crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun, another figure with investments tied to his family.
See the pattern? It's a clear message to every grifter and rule-bender in the digital wild west: if you've got enough cash and the right connections, the rules don't apply to you. And the rest of us...
While these guys are getting presidential pardons, regular investors are getting fire-hosed. They're glued to their screens, watching Bitcoin yo-yo between $107k and $111k, sweating every word from Fed Chair Jerome Powell. They're reading headlines like Bitcoin Price Prediction: Is Kiyosaki’s Crash Warning the Catalyst for a Major BTC Price Movement? and wondering if they're the ones taking all the risk, while the architects of the system cash in their chips and get their records wiped clean.
What does this do to the very idea of regulation? When the highest office in the land treats federal prosecution like a minor inconvenience to be waved away for allies, how can anyone take the SEC or the Justice Department seriously? Maybe that’s the point.
Then again, maybe I'm the crazy one. Maybe in a world where spot crypto ETFs are now getting approved by default because the government can't even stay open long enough to object, this is just the new normal—a scenario captured by headlines like Crypto ETFs: November Could Be the New October for U.S. After Shutdown Delays SEC Decisions. A system so broken and captured by moneyed interests that a presidential pardon for a convicted billionaire you pretend not to know is just another Tuesday.
Don't Insult My Intelligence
At the end of the day, it's not even the corruption that gets me. It's the contempt. The absolute, unvarnished belief that we, the public, are so stupid, so distracted, and so numb that we'll swallow any lie they feed us. "I don't know who he is." It's not a defense. It's an insult. It's a declaration that the truth is irrelevant, and the only thing that matters is power and who you know. Welcome to the new American dream.
