Scenes from American Kleptocracy
By 
Let’s check in on the Trump administration’s ongoing efforts to make corruption great again.
Representatives of President Trump’s family have held talks to take a financial stake in the U.S. arm of crypto exchange Binance, according to people familiar with the matter, a move that would put Trump in business with the firm that pleaded guilty in 2023 to violating anti-money-laundering requirements.
At the same time, Binance’s billionaire founder, Changpeng Zhao—who served four months in prison after pleading guilty to a related charge—has been pushing for the Trump administration to grant him a pardon, people familiar with the matter said. Zhao, widely known as CZ, remains Binance’s largest shareholder.
The talks began after Binance reached out to allies of Trump last year offering to strike a business deal with the family as part of a plan to return the exiled company to the U.S.
It is unclear what form the Trump family stake would take if the deal comes together or whether it would be contingent on a pardon. The possibilities include the Trumps taking the stake or the deal going through World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency venture backed by the Trumps that launched in September, the people said.
Steve Witkoff, a longtime friend of Trump’s who is now his top negotiator in the Middle East and for the war in Ukraine, has been involved in the talks for a deal, some of the people familiar with the matter said.
So this is an LGM as “news aggregator” post. You know, the type:
- Framing paragraph that runs approximately 1-3 sentences;
- Long quotation from elsewhere;
- Concluding zinger, quip, or callback to an LGM leitmotif.
I tried to implement the format, but I honestly can’t think of anything particularly clever to wrap the post with. But, to be perfectly honest, I got nothing. The speed with which the U.S. is transforming into an authoritarian kleptocracy is shocking, but not also unsurprising. This is the direction Trump and his cronies were headed in the first term. They just lacked the experience and confidence to make it happen.
