Crooked Crypto Exchange Invests in a Trump Venture In Exchange for Having a Federal Money-Laundering Investigation Dropped

Apr 12, 2025

I suppose we should stop being shocked by reports of massive conflicts of interest in the Trump administration. But it’s worth keeping in mind the sheer magnitude of the money being siphoned to the Trump family in exchange for political favors.

The Wall Street Journal reports:

Executives from cryptocurrency exchange Binance met with Treasury Department officials last month and discussed loosening U.S. government oversight on the company, while it was also exploring a business deal with a Trump family crypto venture, according to people familiar with the talks.
The Binance executives asked Treasury officials in Washington to remove a U.S. monitor that oversees the exchange’s compliance with anti-money-laundering laws, some of the people said. The move would mark a first step toward returning the company, which in 2023 pleaded guilty to violating those laws, to the U.S. market.
Binance has also been in talks to list a new dollar-pegged cryptocurrency from World Liberty Financial, a crypto venture backed by President Trump’s family, other people familiar with the discussions said. Listing the token, known as a stablecoin, could catapult it into a huge market and potentially bring in billions in profit for the family.

It almost makes President Clinton’s selling sleepovers in the Lincoln Bedroom in exchange for a big campaign donation seem wholesome by comparison.

It goes without saying that federal regulators cannot be assumed to be making unbiased decisions when their boss has such a vast personal financial stake in the outcome.

The Executive Watch is a project of the Institute for the Study of Modern Authoritarianism, and its flagship publication The UnPopulist, to track in an ongoing way the abuses of the power of the American presidency. It sorts these abuses into five categories: Personal Grift, Political Corruption, Presidential Retribution, Power Consolidation, and Policy Illegality. Click the category of interest to get an overview of all the abuses under it.

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