Trump Latest Crypto Quid Pro Quo Grift
Major ethics violations are becoming normalized
A few weeks ago in this Substack series, we covered some of the ways that Trump, his sons Eric and Donald Jr., and Zach Witkoff, the son of Steve Witkoff, the White House envoy to the Middle East, were enriching themselves through a crypto company called World Liberty Financial (“WLF”). You can read the article, “How Trump is Pocketing Billions in the Cryptocurrency Market” here.
I suspected in that article that there was going to be some big league quid pro quo coming for Binance. Boy was I right, and how quickly has it started to come! During the first regime, Trump might have held back on being so blatant about his ethics violations for fear of public perception and reprisals. This go-round its right out there for all of us to see, no holds barred!
I want to start out by observing, how far down the slippery slope we have gone on conflicts of interest and ethics. In normal times, a story like what we’re about to cover would be the top story on every news outlet, and top of the hour on every cable TV station. Our media is understaffed and overwhelmed. It’s not their fault, but a blatant quid pro quo like we’re about to cover has basically become normalized in the second Trump era. Hence the importance of The Weekly List, and writing it all down - so we will remember!
A Conference in Dubai
About a month ago, at a conference in Dubai, Eric Trump was on a panel when a first of its kind, major transaction for WLF was announced. State-backed Emirati firm MGX said it would use a stablecoin developed by WLF, to finance its $2 billion deal with Binance.
Binance. Hmm. We had already covered some happenings with this company in Week 19 of The Weekly List in March. Let’s start from the beginning.
Background on Binance
In 2023, Changpeng Zhao, founder of Binance pleaded guilty to violating U.S. money-laundering rules, as part of a Justice Department investigation. As part of the plea, Binance paid a $4.3 billion fine, and Zhao stepped down as CEO and faced four months of prison time. It was the biggest fine in crypto history.
As we covered in Week 19, in March, Zhao met with members of the Trump family to discuss their taking a financial stake in the U.S. arm of Binance’s crypto exchange. At the same time, Zhao asked the family a favor: for Trump to pardon him. Conflict of interest? You bet!
So when this deal was announced in Dubai, my antenna instinctually went up, and I knew there would be more! As part of the deal, WLF was set to make hundreds in million in fees, AND this would be their first deal using their newly launched stablecoin USD1, another potential revenue stream for the Trump family.