The attorney representing Binance co-founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao has rejected claims that he paid for a pardon from U.S. President Donald Trump.
Speaking on Anthony Pompliano’s “Pomp Podcast” on Friday, CZ’s personal lawyer Teresa Goody Guillén called the criticism surrounding the pardon a “pileup of false statements.”
She noted that the media often portrays World Liberty as Trump’s company, but said, “I haven’t seen anything to suggest that’s true.”
“People are making these assumptions that just show a fundamental misunderstanding of how either business works or how blockchain works.”
CZ spent four months in prison in 2024 and stepped away from Binance after facing charges tied to the firm’s failure to implement proper Anti-Money Laundering controls.
He was pardoned by Donald Trump in October, with the president arguing that what CZ was jailed for “wasn’t a crime.”
The move drew sharp criticism from figures like Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, who called the pardon “corruption,” claiming CZ had supported one of Trump’s crypto ventures and lobbied for clemency.
CZ countered that Warren couldn’t get her “facts right.”
Addressing those accusations, Guillén questioned the broad legal immunity afforded to U.S. politicians, arguing that Warren inaccurately stated CZ had been convicted of a crime he “wasn’t convicted of,” while also implying additional “criminal liability” tied to the pardon.
“This is an area where I hope we start paying more attention,” she said. “The level of immunity given to these officials is not what our founding fathers intended.”
Pardon was “justice,” says CZ’s lawyer
On Pompliano’s podcast, Guillén argued that the pardon amounted to “justice,” saying CZ had become a scapegoat in the broader crackdown on crypto. She pointed out that executives in traditional finance have often avoided jail time in comparable circumstances.
“He’s the only person who has ever been prosecuted — and worse, imprisoned — for this specific type of charge, especially in a case with no fraud, no victims, and no criminal history,” she said, adding:
“I think it was part of the war on crypto, and at that point, this was close after the FTX collapse and I think that the war in crypto had to go against somebody, and they had to prosecute somebody and really persecute someone. And unfortunately, that ended up being Binance and CZ.”
