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- [00:01]
Kate Linebaugh
Foreign.
- [00:06]
Rebecca Ballhaus
Trump has made crypto a big part of his agenda. He's even called himself the crypto president.
- [00:13]
Kate Linebaugh
And last year, I promised to make America the bitcoin superpower of the world and the crypto capital of the planet. And we're taking historic action to deliver on that promise, as you know.
- [00:25]
Rebecca Ballhaus
And today the the Wall Street Journal came out with a big scoop on a potential deal between the Trump family and a crypto giant.
- [00:34]
Kate Linebaugh
Our reporting shows that representatives of Trump's family have held talks to take a financial stake in the US Arm of Binance, which is a crypto exchange that in 2023 pleaded guilty and paid a pretty massive fine after it was accused of violating anti money laundering requirements.
- [00:54]
Rebecca Ballhaus
That's investigative reporter Rebecca Ballhaus. And according to Rebecca's reporting, not only is the Trump family in talks about a stake in Binance, but the founder of Binance, a convicted felon, is also asking for a presidential pardon.
- [01:12]
Kate Linebaugh
And so the fact of someone, you know pushing for an official government action from the president at the same time as a company is in talks with the president's family or representatives of the president's family, is just a pretty striking mixture between official and personal business. In an ordinary administration, the family of a president pursuing a business deal like this, particularly in an industry that the president is actively making rules for and sort of doing things that the industry has long wanted, would in any ordinary administration be an enormous scandal. In this administration, I would say, you know, the Trump Organization has been pretty upfront about the fact that they're not going to stop pursuing business deals. But I think the really shocking thing is just this sort of idea of pursuing a business deal as a pardon is also being sought. It certainly creates the appearance of a conflict, even if it's not an exchange of one for the other.
- [02:20]
Rebecca Ballhaus
Welcome to the Journal, our show about money, business and power. Katie I'm Kate LINEBAUGH. It's Thursday, March 13th. Coming up on the show, the Trump family, a possible crypto deal, and maybe even a presidential pardon.
- [02:50]
Kate Linebaugh
This episode of the Journal is brought to you by HubSpot. It takes a lot to grow your business. You've got to attract audiences, score leads, manage all the channels. But with Breeze HubSpot's new AI tools, it's never been easier to be a marketer and crush your goals fast. Which means pretty soon your company will have a lot to celebrate, like 110% more leads in just 12 months. Visit HubSpot.com marketers to learn more. This episode is brought to you by bank of America. What if your business could see beyond what is and into what can be? And what if you had a partner as visionary as you are? Bank of America gives customers access to trusted experts, real time insights and digital tools to make every move matter. What would you like the power to do? Visit bankofamerica.com bankingforbusiness bank of America is proud to be the official bank sponsor of FIFA World Cup 2026.
- [03:56]
Rebecca Ballhaus
What is Binance and who founded it?
- [03:59]
Kate Linebaugh
Binance is a crypto exchange that for years was sort of one of the major exchanges. It was founded by Changpeng Zhao, CZ, as he's known in 2017 in Shanghai. And for years it was really sort of on the rise, growing incredibly quickly and was really one of the main competitors in this space.
- [04:25]
Rebecca Ballhaus
As it grew, Binance came under scrutiny from federal regulators. In response, CZ set up a separate US Exchange for American clients to try to allay the regulatory concerns. But then in 2023, Binance reached a deal with the Justice Department over a sweeping criminal investigation.
- [04:48]
Kate Linebaugh
We do have some breaking news on a major crypto company, Binance. The CEO, Changpeng Zhao, is pleading guilty.
- [04:54]
Rebecca Ballhaus
To federal charges, including the use of.
- [04:56]
Kate Linebaugh
Cryptocurrency exchanges to support groups such as Hamas. Binance Founder CZ sentenced to four months.
- [05:03]
Rebecca Ballhaus
In prison the Department of Justice says that his company, Binance, failed to prevent money laundering. Binance agreed to settle the investigation and to pay a $4.3 billion fine and its founder, CZ.
- [05:21]
Kate Linebaugh
So as part of the settlement, Zhao stepped down as CEO, but he remained the majority shareholder and last year he was sentenced to four months in prison. He was released in September and he's now living in Abu Dhabi.
- [05:38]
Rebecca Ballhaus
In 2023, the crypto industry was in hard times. Popular exchange FTX had collapsed and its owner Sam Bankman Fried, was convicted of fraud. Federal investigators were cracking down on crypto companies. But now in 2025, crypto is on an upswing. A few months ago, bitcoin hit an all time high of $100,000. Many investors point to Trump's re election as a good sign for the industry. But Binance is currently missing out. When did Binance start thinking it could potentially re enter the US market?
- [06:20]
Kate Linebaugh
So our understanding is that around the time of Trump's election win last fall, Binance began exploring its options for how to return to the US Market. It began telling people that it was willing to make a deal with Trump's company and and that it wanted to eliminate its legal problems in the US and our understanding is that around that time, it began reaching out to allies of Trump, sort of offering to strike a business deal with the family as part of this plan to return the company to the US Was there a.
- [06:52]
Rebecca Ballhaus
Playbook they were following? Like, how did they come up with an idea of what to do?
- [06:58]
Kate Linebaugh
So our understanding is that they got a pretty good idea for a playbook when they saw what happened in November with Justin's son. According to a person familiar with the discussions in November, Justin sun, who's a China born crypto entrepreneur who is facing charges from the SEC, invested $30 million in World Liberty Financial, which is a crypto company that is backed by the Trump family and was launched a couple of months before the election. And for sun, we saw that last month the SEC asked a court to pause its fraud case against him. And so it remains to be seen how that will shake out once that 60 day pause is over. And when Binance saw that sun had made this investment, they thought that could be a route for us to go here. And so they began considering making a deal with World Liberty Financial or potentially sort of going the same route of a cash infusion in the company in exchange for a pardon for the founder.
- [08:07]
Rebecca Ballhaus
So what do Binance executives do?
- [08:11]
Kate Linebaugh
So we know that sometime after they internally discussed whether they should go this Justin sun route of investing in World Liberty Financial, these talks about a business deal continue. And at some point here, Steve Witkoff, who's a longtime friend of Trump who also co founded World Liberty Financial, gets involved in these talks.
- [08:35]
Rebecca Ballhaus
Wyckoff is a real estate investor, a lawyer, and is also Trump's top negotiator in the Middle east and for the war in Ukraine. An administration official denied Witkoff's involvement and said he's in the process of divesting from his business interests. World Liberty Financial declined to comment.
- [08:57]
Kate Linebaugh
We don't know the exact TikTok of how these talks unfolded and when each person got involved, but we do know that they've continued even since Trump's inauguration, as well as the push for a pardon for cz. The reason that CZ is seeking a pardon, given that he's already served, you know, his prison sentence and has been released, is that Binance has wanted for at least several months now to return to the US Market. And a pardon would really help him clear the way to do that. The other thing a pardon could help with is that it complicates Binance's business in the European Union to have a majority shareholder be a convicted felon, and so were he to be pardoned it could also sort of ease some hurdles abroad as well.
- [09:47]
Rebecca Ballhaus
Why would this kind of deal be appealing to the Trump family?
- [09:53]
Kate Linebaugh
So it's a great question because you have to think that, you know, this kind of deal, if it became public, would bring a lot of scrutiny that the Trump family and World Liberty Financial might not be interested in. At the same time, I think if they did go forward with a stake in this American arm of Binance, and if the Trump family or World Liberty Financial were to have a stake in that, its value is likely to really increase after returning to the US Market. And so for them, it would mean sort of a piece of this pie that is expected to grow if they.
- [10:28]
Rebecca Ballhaus
Return to the U.S. the Trump Organization and Binance didn't respond to requests for comment. Binance US Declined to comment. In a tweet today, CZ said he had not had discussions about this potential deal, adding, quote, no felon would mind a pardon. How common is this kind of business deal for a president, but also in the Trump universe?
- [10:59]
Kate Linebaugh
Well, you know, it's not unusual for the Trump Organization to pursue deals, including foreign deals. They've been pretty open about that. But what is unusual is, you know, pursuing a deal with a company, first of all, that was convicted of a crime, you know, just over a year ago, but also one whose founder is actively asking for something from the administration. It certainly fits with a pattern of the Trump family or representatives of the Trump family pursuing a number of different business ventures while Trump has been in office.
- [11:44]
Rebecca Ballhaus
Coming up, it's not just Binance, how Trump's family has turned his presidency into a cash bonanza since Trump was elected. What has the Trump family's financial picture looked like?
- [12:25]
Kate Linebaugh
I would say that since the election, there has been a cash bonanza for the Trump family. So we saw this really sort of ramp up during the transition when Amazon had done a $40 million deal to buy a documentary about Melania Trump's return to the White House. And this was a pretty shocking number because it was the most Amazon had ever paid for a documentary. And as we reported last month, it was also three times what the next highest bidder had offered for the documentary. So that was one. The second is that Trump has been pressing the companies that he sued while he was out of office to now settle their lawsuits that he had brought against them. And he's been pretty successful. We've seen a handful of major settlements that total, I think about we're at $50 million so far, much of which is going to Trump's presidential library.
- [13:17]
Rebecca Ballhaus
Those settlements have been with companies including ABC News X and Meta, Trump's other big financial meme coins. Earlier this year, he launched one named for himself, and the first lady launched her own, too.
- [13:37]
Kate Linebaugh
And then we've seen this meme coin that Trump launched in the days before his inauguration that has already collected hundreds of millions of dollars in trading and other fees that go to entities affiliated with.
- [13:51]
Rebecca Ballhaus
What has Trump said about these meme coins?
- [13:55]
Kate Linebaugh
So one thing we heard was that just a couple of weeks ago at Mar a Lago, at a private fundraiser for donors who had paid a billion dollars to be there, he was kind of marveling at the ability of a coin like that to bring in potentially billions of dollars. And he actually went around the audience and asked whether they knew what his coin was worth. And the answer he got was that the total market cap at the time was about $13 billion. But so, you know, it's clear that Trump is paying attention to these things.
- [14:29]
Rebecca Ballhaus
Trump didn't always pay attention to crypto. Just a few years ago, he said it was a disaster waiting to happen.
- [14:37]
Kate Linebaugh
And then we really saw him sharply turn during the campaign, and especially in 2024, towards the industry and started calling him crypto president. But I think there were a couple of factors at play. The first is that I think he saw the potential for fundraising from that industry. We know that between his election and his inauguration, he brought in something like $50 million from the industry for his inaugural fund and other committees. And I think he likes the idea of sort of returning the crypto industry to the US and making the US as he has said, the crypto capital of the world. Foreign.
- [15:20]
Rebecca Ballhaus
Has rolled back some regulatory threats to the crypto industry. He signed executive orders regarding crypto, hosted crypto leaders at the White House. And last week, Trump established a strategic bitcoin reserve.
- [15:35]
Kate Linebaugh
And then the sec, you know, which Trump doesn't directly control, but, you know, he certainly appointed regulators who are friendly to the crypto industry. We've seen them drop or pause a dozen lawsuits against crypto companies so far. So, you know, he'd be getting a stake in a crypto company at a time where crypto is thriving in the.
- [15:56]
Rebecca Ballhaus
US and this cash bonanza that we're talking about, the deals from the Melania documentary to the settlements to the meme coins, have these raised any concerns or criticism?
- [16:13]
Kate Linebaugh
Yes, I think it is safe to say that there has been a lot of criticism of his avid pursuit of business deals while in office. But I think it's also worth noting that the people in the government who would really be in a position to try and do something about this. For example, the head of the Office of Government Ethics Trump fired soon after becoming president, and he's installed a close ally of his in that job. So the number of people within the federal government, or at least within the executive branch, who have the standing to kind of speak out about some of these conflicts, there's a pretty small number of those.
- [16:54]
Rebecca Ballhaus
During Trump's first administration, conflicts of interest were a big concern. How differently are he and his family operating now in. In this second term?
- [17:09]
Kate Linebaugh
So you're right that it was a big issue the first time around, but I would say that this administration is, so far the first term, kind of on steroids when it comes to this stuff. I thought one thing that was really striking was Eric Trump in October, the month before the election, said in an interview with the Journal that sort of the first time around, they tried to do everything right, and he felt they got very little credit for it. And the implication was, you know, we're not going to try and necessarily abide by these norms this time around.
- [17:42]
Rebecca Ballhaus
And are there some guardrails that the White House has put in place?
- [17:49]
Kate Linebaugh
I mean, I think it's important to note that the president is just not bound by the same conflict of interest rules as the rest of the federal government is. He doesn't have to abide by these laws that dictate that you have to avoid participating in something that you have a personal stake in.
- [18:08]
Rebecca Ballhaus
I didn't realize that.
- [18:09]
Kate Linebaugh
Yeah, the president does not have the same requirements of what they have to avoid in terms of conflict. But most presidents other than Trump have sort of taken that very seriously. Nonetheless, they typically place their assets in a blind trust. They avoid striking new deals while in office, but Trump instead has transferred his assets to the control of his children, who have continued to pursue these deals.
- [18:38]
Rebecca Ballhaus
So looking at this potential deal with Binance, is it any different from the other deals that have happened in the Trump orbit?
- [18:50]
Kate Linebaugh
I mean, a number of these deals so far have the potential to have an overlap with the administration's work. You know, these. A settlement with Meta, which is, you know, actively seeking a lot from this administration, and whose CEO, you know, is meeting with Trump in the White House. There is certainly the potential for overlap there or the expectation of overlap there. I think this just sort of takes it one step further where you're pursuing a business deal with a, you know, convicted business venture with a founder who has pleaded guilty just a little over a year ago, who, at the same time is is looking for a pardon for those charges. I just think that that's sort of the most acute intertwining of these things that we've seen.
- [19:54]
Rebecca Ballhaus
That's all for today. Thursday, March 13th. The Journal is a co production of Spotify and the Wall Street Journal. Additional reporting in this episode by Angus Berwick, Josh Dawsey, Patricia Kausman, Annie Linsky, Dana Mattioli and Caitlin Ostroff. Off. Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow.