Donald Trump just pardoned a crypto criminal who’s making the president’s family richer, according to an exclusive Wall Street Journal report Thursday.

After months of lobbying the Trump administration, the president signed a presidential pardon Wednesday for Changpeng Zhao, the founder and former chief executive of Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange.

“The Biden Administration’s war on crypto is over,” announced White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. But is another war on American customers just beginning?

Zhao pleaded guilty in 2023 for failing to maintain an anti-money-laundering program at Binance, earning him a four-month prison sentence. Binance Holdings Limited agreed to pay the United States $4 billion to resolve an investigation into violations related to the Bank Secrecy Act, failure to register as a money-transmitting business, and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

Why would Trump pardon Zhao? Likely because he helped line the Trump family’s pockets through his support of World Liberty Financial, or WLFI, the decentralized finance platform that is majority-owned by a Trump business entity.

Binance has repeatedly boosted and incentivized the use of USD1, WLFI’s stable coin, which is a cryptocurrency that maintains a value of $1. Binance provided WLFI its first significant boon in May when the platform accepted a shady $2 billion investment from Abu Dhabi–based MGX made in Trump’s stable coin. The announcement followed an April meeting between Zachary Witkoff, son of special U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff, who is a “promoter” of WLFI, and Zhao in Abu Dhabi where they discussed USD1.

The Wall Street Journal reported in March that representatives from the president’s family met with Zhao to discuss a potential stake in Binance.US, the company’s American arm, which has been heavily restricted due to regulatory issues. The company had first reached out to the president’s allies last year, looking to strike a deal to bring the exiled firm back to the United States.

New York City’s second mayoral debate did not pan out well for disgraced ex-Governor Andrew Cuomo, least of all when one of his accusers emerged from the crowd to prompt a question.

Charlotte Bennett was the second of 13 women to accuse Cuomo of sexually harassing them during his time in office. Bennett worked as an executive assistant and health policy adviser in the Cuomo administration, but left after the governor asked several unwelcome questions about her sex life and if she “had ever been with an older man.”

Bennett sued Cuomo in 2022 but eventually dropped the case. In April, she agreed to receive a settlement claim tied to separate litigation regarding Cuomo’s alleged harassment. But Cuomo has since said that he would sue Bennett for defamation, effectively silencing her during the mayoral race.

Bennett was apparently invited to the debate hall Wednesday night by Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, and her presence forced one of Cuomo’s most contemptible scandals to center stage.

“You sought to access her private gynecological records,” Mamdani said, referring to actions that Cuomo’s legal team undertook as part of his defense. “She cannot speak up for herself because you lodged a defamation case against her. I, however, can speak.

“What do you say to the 13 women that you sexually harassed?” Mamdani pressed, turning to face Cuomo as the crowd roared.

Despite months of bankrolled debate prep that quickly proved worthless, the former governor’s reply was remarkably underwhelming.

“Uh—if you want to be in government, then you have to be serious and mature,” Cuomo stammered, before noting that he had never been found criminally or civilly liable for his alleged behavior.

In the audience tonight is Charlotte Bennett, one of the 13 women that Andrew Cuomo is credibly alleged to have sexually harassed while they worked in his government.

She can't speak for herself because Cuomo's lawyers have hounded her.

So I confronted him. pic.twitter.com/dtlLY2xVKi

Continuing the takedown of Cuomo into the next day, Republican mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa followed up with his own zinger, telling reporters Thursday morning that “if you’re under 30, Cuomo’s always flirty.”

Andrew Cuomo’s campaign for mayor of New York City is not going well. In polls, he consistently trails the front-runner and Democratic nominee, New York Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani. And on Wednesday night, he was on the receiving end of blistering attacks during the final debate of the mayoral race.

How did Cuomo respond the following morning? By making an offensive and bigoted 9/11 joke about Mamdani, a Muslim.

The former New York governor was on the WABC radio show Sid and Friends in the Morning, and asked host Sid Rosenberg, “God forbid, another 9/11—can you imagine Mamdani in the seat?”

“He’d be cheering,” Rosenberg replied, to which Cuomo replied, “That’s another problem.”

It’s one thing to claim Mamdani lacks the experience to handle a major crisis like a terrorist attack. It’s quite another to insinuate that the Democratic nominee would cheer on a horrific tragedy to the city he’d be........

© New Republic