Elizabeth Warren Rebuffs Cz Defamation Threat As ‘without Merit’
Changpeng Zhao’s lawyer, Teresa Goody Guillén, reportedly threatened to sue Warren for “defamatory statements” on X after CZ secured a pardon from Trump.
A lawyer for US Senator Elizabeth Warren has hit back at allegations that she defamed Binance founder Changpeng Zhao in a social media post following US President Donald Trump’s pardon of him.
The New York Post reported on Tuesday that Zhao’s lawyer, Teresa Goody Guillén, threatened to sue Warren for “defamatory statements that impugn his reputation” unless she removed an Oct. 23 X post that cited “corruption” in Trump’s pardon of Zhao that same day.
Warren’s lawyer Ben Stafford said in a letter to Goody Guillén on Sunday obtained by Punchbowl News that “any threatened defamation claim would be without merit,” as the law Zhao “pled guilty to violating is an anti-money laundering law.”
Warren said in her X post that Zhao “pleaded guilty to a criminal money laundering charge and was sentenced to prison,” which Zhao rebuffed online days later, saying “there were NO money laundering [charges].“
Zhao pleaded guilty in November 2023 to failing to maintain an effective Anti-Money Laundering program at Binance in violation of the Bank Secrecy Act, and a Seattle federal court sentenced him to four months in prison in April 2024.
Warren’s X post added that Zhao “financed President Trump’s stablecoin and lobbied for a pardon,” adding to criticism of Trump’s pardon due to ties between Binance and his family’s crypto venture, World Liberty Financial.
The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg have reported that Binance helped create World Liberty’s stablecoin USD1. The stablecoin was also used in a $2 billion deal for the Emirati state-owned investment firm MGX to buy a stake in Binance in March.
Politico reported on Oct. 25 that Zhao’s pardon came after Binance and its legal team undertook an expensive, months-long effort to win over key figures in Trump’s orbit.
Stafford, Warren’s lawyer, argued in the letter that Warren’s X post “is true in all respects and therefore cannot be defamatory,” and it “accurately represented publicly available and widely reported facts.”
Source: CoinTelegraph
