Teresa Goody Guillén, Changpeng Zhao’s personal attorney, denied pay-to-play allegations surrounding the Binance founder’s presidential pardon.
Summary
- CZ’s attorney says pay-to-play allegations are baseless and fueled by unverified reports.
- Guillén stresses CZ faced regulatory charges only, with no fraud, victims, or laundering.
- Attorney rejects claims linking CZ’s pardon to Trump-related crypto ventures.
In a podcast interview with Anthony Pompliano, Guillén addressed critiques linking the pardon to Binance’s dealings with World Liberty Financial and other Trump-connected entities.
Guillén explained that Zhao, aka CZ, was charged with Binance’s failure to implement anti-money laundering compliance programs, not money laundering itself.
“This is a regulatory infraction. There’s no money laundering involved,” she said. The attorney argued CZ never should have been prosecuted.
Reports based on unverified sources, Binance founder attorney claims
Guillén described the corruption allegations as “a pile-up of a lot of false statements, misstatements, sometimes assumptions.”
She challenged reporters to verify their sources and noted that media outlets cite other media reports without solid evidence.
“You’ll see a media report, citing a media report, citing a media report, and there’s no basis for it other than sources that are close to somebody, which is kind of code for not a strong source,” Guillén stated.
The attorney disputed claims that World Liberty Financial is “Trump’s company,” saying she hasn’t seen evidence supporting this characterization.
Guillén addressed allegations about USD-1, the stablecoin World Liberty Financial issued on the Binance chain.
“Just because I list something on Craigslist, it doesn’t mean that I therefore have some special relationship with the former CEO of Craigslist,” she said.
She explained USD-1 exists on multiple chains, and other exchanges hold it.
Other crypto executives received pardons
Guillén pointed out that Arthur Hayes, former BitMEX CEO, also received a pardon along with the BitMEX company itself. Ross Ulbricht, founder of Silk Road, was pardoned as well.
“We’ve been pardoning people for, and companies, juridical people also from the beginning of our country all the way back to England,” she said.
The attorney noted pardons have historically covered both criminal and civil offenses for individuals and entities.
When asked about secret Bitcoin payments to Trump, Guillén said: “I know CZ. I just know that that would never happen. That’s just not who he is.”
Elizabeth Warren made inaccurate claims about CZ
Senator Elizabeth Warren posted on social media that CZ had been convicted of crimes he wasn’t convicted of. Warren also alleged CZ engaged in pay-to-play to obtain his pardon.
“You can’t just go and say things about people and allege that they violated various crimes or committed various crimes that they haven’t committed,” Guillén stated.
CZ will not return to Binance, which still faces restrictions from DOJ, CFTC, FinCEN, and OFAC. The exchange has a Treasury Department monitor ensuring U.S. law compliance despite being banned from serving U.S. customers.