Despite recent concerns that 60 Minutes had to toe the line under CBS News’ new bosses, Sunday’s (November 16) episode didn’t shy away from criticizing President Donald Trump.
In a segment led by host Scott Pelley, the long-running news magazine program looked into Trump’s pardoning of Changpeng Zhao, the founder and former boss of the Binance cryptocurrency exchange. Zhao stepped down as CEO after pleading guilty to money laundering charges in the US and served four months in prison. He was released in September 2024.
“Our reporting shows that Zhao’s company supported a Trump family firm at critical moments leading up to the President’s pardon,” Pelley said at the top of the segment, per Mediaite.
Speaking with Elizabeth Oyer, a former Pardon Attorney at the Justice Department who was replaced earlier this year by what Pelley called a “Trump loyalist,” Pelley asked whether Trump’s pardon of Zhao was “unusual.”
Oyer said the situation was “unprecedented” based on the role “money” played in securing the pardon. “The self-dealing aspect of the pardon, in terms of the benefit that it conferred on President Trump and his family and people in his inner circle, is also unprecedented,” she added.
According to Pelley, his sources told him that Zhao “donated software” to the crypto company World Liberty Financial, which is closely tied to Trump’s sons, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. After helping the Trump family launch its cryptocurrency, Zhao “applied for a presidential pardon” the next month.
Even more suspicious, according to Pelley, is that the United Arab Emirates invested $2 billion in Binance earlier this year. And what currency did they use for that investment? “Of all the currencies in the world,” Pelley said, they used World Liberty crypto.
“The only reason it makes sense [to use World Liberty crypto] is to ingratiate with the President,” Lawrence Lessig, a Harvard Law professor, told Pelley.
When Pelley asked if the President is “compromised,” Lessig replied, “‘Compromised’ is exactly the description, because we can’t know what’s the actual reason for the decisions that the administration is making. Are the reasons helping America? Or are the reasons helping America and also helping them privately?”
Pelley noted that the United Arab Emirates told 60 Minutes it made the deal because of its “business suitability.”
The segment comes just two weeks after Trump sat down with CBS News’ Norah O’Donnell for an hour-long 60 Minutes interview. During the interview, Trump gloated that the show had paid him “a lot of money” in the lawsuit he filed against them last year.
60 Minutes, Sundays, 7/6c, CBS
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