Introduction of New Bill
On Monday, Representative Ro Khanna from California announced plans to introduce a new bill that would prohibit elected officials from owning or creating cryptocurrencies. In an interview on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, which later appeared on his YouTube channel, Khanna expressed his outrage regarding former President Donald Trump’s recent pardon of Changpeng Zhao, the founder of cryptocurrency exchange Binance.
Allegations of Corruption
Khanna characterized the situation as a clear example of corruption, claiming,
“You don’t need to know a lot about cryptocurrency to understand what’s going on here. There’s a foreign billionaire involved who has been linked to money laundering activities that support Hamas, Iran, and child exploitation.”
However, Khanna misstated key facts about Zhao’s legal situation, claiming he spent four years in prison when it was actually four months, and that he was convicted when, in fact, Zhao pleaded guilty as part of a settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice, resulting in a $4.3 billion deal.
Concerns Over Financial Relationships
The congressman went further by alleging that Trump’s pardon was issued while Zhao was allegedly involved in financially backing a stablecoin associated with Trump, asserting that Zhao was supporting World Liberty Finance, which he referred to as “the president’s son’s cryptocurrency venture.” Khanna declared that this kind of activity was not just wrong but illegal, insisting that politicians should not be allowed to possess cryptocurrency or accept funds from foreign sources.
Bipartisan Investigation Call
Khanna’s comments on MSNBC echoed his earlier sentiments from a discussion on The Briefing the preceding Friday, where he called for a bipartisan investigation into the potential financial relationships between the Trump family and Zhao.
“This issue transcends technology; it is fundamentally about corruption,”
he stressed, highlighting the potential for exchange of pardons for financial gain.
Previous Legislative Efforts
This legislative initiative follows Khanna’s introduction of the Ban Congressional Stock Trading Act in 2023, which sought to curb Congress members and their families from trading individual stocks during their tenure. This earlier bill aimed to bolster public trust by preventing lawmakers from benefitting personally from policy decisions or insider information and would require officials to either divest from individual holdings or invest in blind trusts with diversified funds or Treasury securities.
Although the stock trading ban was stalled in committee and did not become law, it fueled ongoing bipartisan discussions to regulate stock and crypto trading among lawmakers. Khanna’s office has yet to provide a draft of the new cryptocurrency bill, and he has not responded to inquiries about his own trading practices.
