Changpeng” CZ” Zhao Facilitating money laundering: In 2023 the then-CEO of Binance pleaded guilty to allowing bad actors–including some from ISIS– to use his massive cryptocurrency exchange, to skirt international sanctions. Binance was fined $4.3 billion; Zhao personally paid $50 million penalty. Trump said he knew nothing about the case–except he’d “heard it was Biden’s witch hunt.”

Juan Orlando Hernandez; drug trafficking: In a landmark Department of Justice drug trafficking case, the former president of Honduras was extradited to the United States in 2022 for helping flood the United States with hundreds of tons of cocaine. His conviction in 2024 marked a major win for the Biden administration’s drug war. In November, Trump wiped out his 45 year prison sentence. About aa month later Trump invaded Venezuela and spirited Maduro who the administration accused of trafficking cocaine. Is this to gain control of Venezuelan oil? Why pardon a serious drug lord who wrote a fawning letter to Trump but was convicted under Biden but then seize Maduro if it was not to get access to oil?