Senate Democrats are asking Attorney General Pam Bondi for more information on Trump’s decision to pardon Binance’s Changpeng Zhao after the firm threw its weight behind a Trump-affiliated stablecoin.
“The pardon — which signals to cryptocurrency executives and other white collar criminals that they can commit crimes with impunity, so long as they enrich President Trump enough — seems likely to encourage, rather than discourage, criminal activity,” Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., Jack Reed, D-R.I., and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., wrote in a letter to Bondi shared first with Semafor.
Warren, who will try for unanimous consent today in the Senate to adopt a resolution condemning the pardon, plans to warn on the floor that “if Senate Republicans don’t let us fix this, then [they] own this lawlessness,” according to remarks shared with Semafor.
The effort is expected to fail.
The administration says that Zhao was a victim of the Biden administration’s “desire to punish the cryptocurrency industry.”