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Trump pardons convicted Binance founder

wsj.com

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Re: Trump pardons convicted Binance founder

#31

Post by wmf »

nickff wrote: post #14
taylodl wrote: post #4

I'm impressed. Leavitt managed to Blame the Biden administration, effectively asserting that Zhao's crimes were a result of the Biden administration's "war on crypto." Never mind that Zhao was engaged in criminal activity for which he was prosecuted, tried, and found guilty.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but Zhao was convicted of crimes which were a direct result of his operating a crypto exchange, and not any other criminal activity. It may be possible to operate a legally-compliant crypto exchange, but I am not sure that any current exchange is fully compliant with US law. If we agree on these facts, and think that the 'war on drugs' is what has resulted in 'drug possession' and 'dru…

The CEOs of Coinbase, Gemini, Kraken, etc. have not been indicted for anything. Those exchanges have had some compliance issues but they were minor compared to Binance, FTX, BitMEX, etc.

Re: Trump pardons convicted Binance founder

#32

Post by thijson »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #27
bdavisx wrote: post #12

Serious question - it seems that many of this Administrations activities are illegal in some way or the other. I know that government officials are shielded from a lot of actions so they can not be prosecuted. What actions that have been taken could actually be prosecuted? For example, I would have to assume that the ballroom demolition and build-out is illegal, there were $0 appropriated from Congress for this, and…

> it seems that many of this Administrations activities are illegal Many are. This one is not. The President has sweeping pardon powers. The solution is to strike the final phrase in Article 2, Section 2, Clause 1 of the U.S. Constitution: “and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.” [1]. There isn’t a place for one-man pardons in a r…

It seems like whatever party gets into power, suddenly doesn't want to change the system they inherited. I remember Trudeau talking about eliminating first past the post in Canadian elections. But once he got into power he forgot about it.

We need a way to vote for popular ideas via referendum at the federal level. That might get it through.

Re: Trump pardons convicted Binance founder

#33

Post by tzs »

billy99k wrote: post #21

[flagged]

He pardoned one family member who actually committed a crime, one who had been subject to some allegations that went nowhere, and several who had no creditable allegations of any criminal activity.

If Harris had won it is likely that none of those pardons would have happened. They happened because Trump was promising to go after the families of people he saw as an enemy.

Re: Trump pardons convicted Binance founder

#34

Post by JumpCrisscross »

thijson wrote: post #32
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it seems that many of this Administrations activities are illegal Many are. This one is not. The President has sweeping pardon powers. The solution is to strike the final phrase in Article 2, Section 2, Clause 1 of the U.S. Constitution: “and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.” [1]. There isn’t a place for one-man pardons in a r…

It seems like whatever party gets into power, suddenly doesn't want to change the system they inherited. I remember Trudeau talking about eliminating first past the post in Canadian elections. But once he got into power he forgot about it. We need a way to vote for popular ideas via referendum at the federal level. That might get it through.

> seems like whatever party gets into power, suddenly doesn't want to change the system

“The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution” [1].

No President. No courts. Partisanship may work to our advantage in a divided government. What you would need, however, to reach two thirds is some members of the President’s party signing on. That could happen if the President is taking a dump in the polls, and the opposition looks likely (but isn’t yet assured) to gain the Presidency next term.

> We need a way to vote for popular ideas via referendum at the federal level

We need a plebiscite institution. But that can be done at state level for Constitutonal amendment approval. What we don’t want is direct democracy proposing amendments. California is a modern example of why republics are more stable than pure democracies, for anyone who forgot about Athens.

Re: Trump pardons convicted Binance founder

#36

Post by dgrr19 »

skm12 wrote: post #16

- Zhao has ties to World Liberty Financial, a crypto venture that Trump and his sons Eric and Donald Jr. launched in September. - Trump’s most recent financial disclosure report reveals he made more than $57 million last year from World Liberty Financial

they just reported 1B from crypto ventures, so 57m seems like lunch money...

Re: Trump pardons convicted Binance founder

#37

Post by gorjusborg »

greenpizza13 wrote: post #5
mmayberry wrote: post #3

Fraud is now legal

As long as you bow to King Trump.

I have no proof of this, but I would bet that there will be some quid-pro-quo involved between Trump and the pardonee. Trump does not usually give things away, he leverages his power to get more power/money.

Re: Trump pardons convicted Binance founder

#38

Post by platevoltage »

tartuffe78 wrote: post #35

It's a good thing Trump is as old as he is. Imagine if a 50 year old had this much influence over his party, could ignore any law, and stole this much money. May I never live to see such a thing happen in the US, but it doesn't feel unlikely.

We better hope JD Vance isn't able to capture the cult of personality after Trump is gone.
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