How much do you think this pardon cost?

I’ll bet you a lot of LoomCoin that it wasn’t paid in crypto either.

President Trump has pardoned Changpeng Zhao, the convicted founder of the crypto exchange Binance, according to people familiar with the matter, following months of efforts by Zhao to boost the Trump family’s own crypto company.

The president signed the pardon on Wednesday, the people said. Trump recently indicated to advisers that he was sympathetic to arguments of political persecution related to Zhao and others, one of the people said. 

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that Trump had “exercised his constitutional authority by issuing a pardon for Mr. Zhao, who was prosecuted by the Biden Administration in their war on cryptocurrency.” She added: “The Biden Administration’s war on crypto is over.”

Binance didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

A pardon will likely pave the way for Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, to return to the U.S., after the company pleaded guilty in 2023 to violating U.S. anti-money-laundering requirements and was barred from operating there.

The company has spent nearly a year pursuing a pardon for Zhao, who left prison in September 2024 after serving a four-month sentence for related charges. Earlier this year, the company hired lobbyist Ches McDowell to help pursue a pardon, the Journal previously reported.

The corruption is completely out in the open.

I asked in a comment thread below what the Democrats could do, specifically were there any real options somewhere between the status quo, which is basically “pretend everything is normal, the authoritarianism/fascism isn’t really happening, we’re just negotiating with Trump like we would have negotiated with Bush or Reagan,” and total formal resistance, in the sense of an absolute refusal to cooperate on ANYTHING until certain minimum preconditions regarding the rollback of the authoritarianism/fascism are met.

I think I agree with Murc’s response below:

Basically, we should withdraw from governing with the fascist coalition unless they meet our demands, which are “govern within the normal constitutional order and be significantly non-fascist.” They won elections. They have majorities. Very well; even in our ramshackle system this grants them a great amount of formal legitimacy and they may therefore govern as they please.

But WE do not have to govern WITH them. That formal legitimacy is as far as it goes. Beyond that? They get nothing from us. Not one thing. We should, in fact, be hurling our bodies into the gears of governance and not giving an inch. You remember those stunts Republicans would periodically pull, where in the Senate they’d do shit like have a single Senator hold up all military promotions for months by refusing to cooperate? That, but with EVERYTHING. They can’t so much as pass a resolution declaring that kittens are fluffy without us refusing to cooperate in any way, shape, or form.

When asked about this, the response should always be “Trump and his enablers are treasonous rapists who are vandalizing the nation. We won’t participate in that. They have majorities; address your questions about how the country is run to them.”

Withdraw from governing. Refuse to be complicit. This is the very, very least of what the moment requires, the bare minimum.

Now, the most logical outcome here is they simply run us over. Very well; make them do that.

I don’t give a shit about polls or public sentiment on this one, or how it affects electability. Any pol, pundit, or commenter who wants to whinge about polling has already fucked up, they’ve failed at the first hurdle. When the Republic is under siege I expect our political leaders to do the right thing regardless of the political winds. You know who put his finger to the wind and decided he had to give the ruling coalition what they wanted to? Ludwig Kaas.

Don’t collaborate.

That’s the option we should pick. You’re right; there isn’t middle ground.

Actually I was hoping there was some sort of realistic middle ground when I asked the question, but hope is not a plan. I am struck by the extent, which is to say total, that the Democratic party leadership is failing to rise to — or even acknowledge the existence of — the present situation.