The convicted founder of Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, said he was “a little bit surprised” by President Donald Trump’s pardon of him on “Special Report” Friday.
“We have never met,” former Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao told “Special Report” anchor Bret Baier in an exclusive interview. “We have never talked.”
In 2023, Zhao pleaded guilty to a money-laundering–related charge. He served a four-month prison sentence under the Biden administration. President Donald Trump pardoned him Oct. 21, according to the Department of Justice.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt touted Trump’s pardon as “officially end[ing] the Biden administration’s war on the cryptocurrency industry.”
Changpeng Zhao, former CEO of Binance, speaks at the Delta Summit, Malta’s official Blockchain and Digital Innovation event promoting cryptocurrency, in St Julian’s, Malta, on Oct. 4, 2018. REUTERS/Darrin Zammit Lupi(Reuters)
On Sunday, Trump said in a “60 Minutes” interview he does not know Zhao.
The cryptocurrency founder similarly denied having ties to the Trump family, despite The Wall Street Journal attributing Zhao’s pardon to Binance’s alleged “deal” with the Trumps’ cryptocurrency project, World Liberty Financial.
“That’s completely not accurate,” Zhao said on “Special Report.” “There’s no deal, there has never been any discussions. It’s as simple as that.”
However, Zhao said he met American Bitcoin co-founder — and Trump’s son, Eric Trump — once at the Bitcoin MENA conference in Abu Dhabi.
Eric Trump, co-founder and chief strategy officer of American Bitcoin Corp., during a Bloomberg Television interview in New York, US, on Sept. 17, 2025. (Kena Betancur/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Zhao called the WSJ’s reporting “categorically false,” denying any business relationships with Trump’s sons.
He also addressed why he pleaded guilty to a violation of the Bank Secrecy Act, which included failure to properly implement an effective anti-money-laundering program.
“I think it’s the best way to confront the problem and solve it head-on,” he said, later adding: “I do not have anything to debate on the charges.”
Zhao cited Trump’s GENIUS Act, which defined federal regulations for cryptocurrency, as a marker of the U.S. “leading” in crypto rules.
President Donald Trump during a signing ceremony for the GENIUS Act in the East Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., on July 18, 2025. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“The more clarity we have in the industry, the better,” Zhao argued.
“I think in the last administration, even when I was charged and even when I pleaded guilty, there wasn’t any clear regulatory frameworks for crypto in the U.S., so I think now it’s getting much clearer, and U.S. is definitely leading,” he added.
The Wall Street Journal responded to Zhao’s comments, telling “Special Report,” “We stand by our reporting.” Both Fox News and The Wall Street Journal are owned by News Corp.
Stephanie Samsel is a digital production assistant at Fox News Digital. She has previously written for Campus Reform and the Media Research Center, covering political bias in education and entertainment. Follow her on X @StephSamsel.
Eric Trump called his father live on stage during a Turning Point USA event on the campus of Auburn University in Alabama. President Donald Trump then told a packed arena, “We love Charlie” and, “He’s looking down on us right now.”
The president’s son, who was co-hosting the event with his wife, Lara Trump, drew cheers on Wednesday night when he asked those in attendance, “By the way, should we see what he is doing right now? Should we try calling him?”
“Hello? Hello?” Donald Trump was heard saying on the call as Eric Trump held his phone up to a microphone, drawing a raucous applause.
“So we have the most beautiful crowd of people, thousands and thousands of people at Auburn University. They are incredibly enthusiastic, and they absolutely adore this country, they adore God, and they adore you,” Eric Trump said.
Eric Trump, right, called his father, President Donald Trump, left, during a Turning Point USA event on Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2025, at Auburn University in Alabama.(Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images; Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
“Well, I want to just say hello to everybody, I hope Erika is doing a good job and Lara is doing a good job. And Auburn is a special place, I’ve been there many times,” Donald Trump responded.
“I just want to pay my respects to Charlie and Erika — these are two incredible people. And Erika, I’ve spoken to her often, she is just a spectacular person, and she is going to start where Charlie left off, and we should never allow this to happen,” the president also said, referencing the Sept. 10 assassination of Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University.
Charlie Kirk’s widow, Erika, sits down with Fox News host Jesse Watters for her first interview since the assassination of her husband.(Fox News)
“One of the greatest people we have ever known and was so responsible for our win. And we love Charlie, he’s looking down on us right now, all of us and Erika, you just, you are there some place, and you just take care of yourself. We are with you all the way, and we are with the great people that my son and Lara are speaking to, and I love you all,” the president continued.
“As President of the United States, I love you all and our country is doing great,” Donald Trump added.
Turning Point USA said on its website that each stop of the “This is the Turning Point” tour “is a chance to honor Charlie’s mission and keep the fight alive.
Vice President JD Vance addresses a Turning Point USA audience at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, Miss., Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2025.(Jonathan Ernst-Pool/Getty Images)
in Singapore and Ramadani Saputra in Jakarta, Indonesia
President Trump’s company has said he won’t be involved in day-to-day management. But the president’s personal business and his government role intersected this week when he was heard on a hot mic arranging a meeting between his son Eric, who runs the family company, and Indonesia’s leader.
In the exchange, captured on audio at a Middle East summit, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto referred to an issue about a region that was “not safe, securitywise” before asking Trump: “Can I meet Eric?”
“I became the most subpoenaed person in American history for doing absolutely nothing wrong,” Eric Trump said. “They did everything they could to destroy our family. That’s why I called it Under Siege.”
“They took him off the ballot in Colorado. They took him off Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. They indicted him 91 times. They kept us locked in a courtroom every single day. They de-banked our entire organization — Capital One, Bank of America, JP Morgan.”
“This was the worst of government. It’s a great ending to the story that we won in a spectacular fashion. I couldn’t be more proud of that, but I had to write the story of the viciousness of politics.”
“If my father wanted vengeance, he could have thrown Hillary Clinton in jail for deleting 33,000 emails, right, and a whole host of other things,” Eric Trump also said. “Did we ever raid Biden’s home? Did we raid Hunter’s? Did we put gag orders on him? Did we subpoena him 112 times? The difference between me and Hunter is that I’m actually a clean human being. I don’t have a laptop from hell. Did we ever make up a dirty dossier against Biden? No. So it’s not vengeance. If Comey lied, he’ll have his day in court.”
“I would’ve told you eight years ago there wasn’t an heir apparent” to the MAGA movement, he said. “Unlike the Democrats, we’re actually going to have a process… JD Vance has a leg up being vice president: right age, temperament, he would have my vote, I love the guy. But we’re going to go through a process, and the people who are actually chosen by Republicans will be the person who stands on the ballot against the Democrats.”
“If there’s one thing we can all agree on, my father will probably play a large role in that process,” he joked. “And frankly, as kind of the founder of the new Republican Party, he probably deserves to be a big part of that.”
Eric Trump has teased the return of “Trump Vodka,” one of his family’s former business ventures that was discontinued in the U.S. after weak sales.
The president’s son posted an image on Instagram promising the spirit was “coming soon.”
Why It Matters
During his presidencies, Donald Trump and his family have attached their name to a range of commercial ventures.
The family’s continued promotion of Trump-branded ventures has fueled concerns about conflicts of interest and personal gain, with watchdogs warning it blurs the line between public service and private profit.
What To Know
The relaunched “Trump Vodka” will be distilled and bottled in the United States, according to the product’s Facebook page. It was previously produced in the Netherlands and later in Germany.
The president’s second son Eric runs the Trump Winery in Virginia, selling a range of wines, and he told The Independentin January that the company was considering adding spirits to their offering.
“Trump Vodka” debuted in 2005 as a luxury spirit through a licensing deal between Donald Trump and Drinks Americas.
Despite some initial success, sales began to slump and the product was eventually discontinued in the U.S. in 2011.
President Trump, famously a teetotaler who says he has never had a drink of alcohol, once described the spirit as “a smooth vodka, it’s a great-tasting vodka.”
He promoted a new cocktail, called the T&T or the Trump and tonic, which he predicted would become the most popular in the country.
A regular bottle was priced at $30 and a special edition with a 24-karat gold-leaf label was sold for $100.
The vodka was one of several short-lived Trump-branded ventures over the years, which has included Trump Airlines, Trump Steaks, Trump University, and Trump Casinos.
The Trump family has continued to launch or attach their name to several commercial ventures during his time in office.
This has included crypto ventures such as the $TRUMP memecoin, a bitcoin mining company called American Bitcoin, and the World Liberty Financial platform.
In June, the Trump family launched Trump Mobile, a new cellphone service along with a $499 gold smartphone.
Trump has also turned campaign merchandise into a business empire, making millions selling everything from MAGA hats and mugs to limited-edition sneakers, cologne, and signed books.
What People Are Saying
Trump Vodka posted on Facebook: “Coming soon: Trump Vodka—proudly distilled and bottled in the United States of America. Stay-tuned.”
What Happens Next
The website for Trump Vodka simply says “coming soon,” without any further information of when the product will launch.
It was President Trump who announced that conservative commentator and activist Charlie Kirk had died after he was shot during a Turning Point USA event at Utah Valley University on Wednesday afternoon. The president, who was close to Kirk, praised his appeal to young Americans and mourned him in a social media post.
“The Great, and even Legendary, Charlie Kirk, is dead. No one understood or had the Heart of the Youth in the United States of America better than Charlie. He was loved and admired by ALL, especially me, and now, he is no longer with us,” Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social.
The president also ordered flags to be lowered to half-staff until Sunday evening to honor Kirk.
Later Wednesday, Mr. Trump released a video statement about Kirk, blaming the “radical left” for his killing. “For years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world’s worst mass murderers and criminals,” he said in a video posted to Truth Social. “This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now.”
Democratic and Republican politicians alike condemned Kirk’s murder, although among some in Congress, there were disagreements about how to observe his death on the House floor. Speaker Mike Johnson attempted to hold a moment of silence for Kirk. Then, according to the House gallery, GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado asked for a point of order — she reshared an X post that said she had asked for a moment of prayer. A Democrat yelled, “No.” Boebert and Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a Florida Republican, then started to speak out, as other lawmakers who appeared to be Democrats responded. One yelled, “There was just a shooting in Colorado!” Another said “Pass some gun laws!” Johnson repeatedly called for order.
In an appearance on Fox News, Johnson explained what had happened. “A motion was made on the floor to have a vocal prayer, and it turned into an argument,” he said, adding, “You know, that’s where our politics are in the country right now. We have got to turn the heat down a little bit. We got to have civil discourse.”
“The great tragic irony about this, one of the tragedies, is that Charlie represented that, the best of it,” Johnson continued. “He’s the guy that was the champion out on the front lines having the debate, but he he loved the people that disagreed with him …. He loved it, and he loved the debate.”
“That’s what’s so important for us to remember,” Johnson said. “We shouldn’t regard one another as enemies. We’re fellow Americans, and we should have vigorous debate, but it cannot lead to political violence. It’s just too much.”
File: Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, enters the plaza and talks with his supporters, May 1, 2025. / Credit: Michael Ho Wai Lee/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
Biden says there’s “no place in our country for this kind of violence”
Former President Joe Biden decried the attack on Kirk in a post on social media.
“There is no place in our country for this kind of violence. It must end now. Jill and I are praying for Charlie Kirk’s family and loved ones,” he said in a post shared to X.
Obama calls Kirk’s killing an act of “despicable violence”
Former President Barack Obama condemned the shooting, calling it “despicable violence” in a post on X.
“We don’t yet know what motivated the person who shot and killed Charlie Kirk, but this kind of despicable violence has no place in our democracy,” Obama said. “Michelle and I will be praying for Charlie’s family tonight, especially his wife Erika and their two young children.”
Bush says “violence and vitriol must be purged from the public square”
In a statement, former President George W. Bush said, “Today, a young man was murdered in cold blood while expressing his political views. It happened on a college campus, where the open exchange of opposing ideas should be sacrosanct.”
“Violence and vitriol must be purged from the public square. Members of other political parties are not our enemies; they are our fellow citizens. May God bless Charlie Kirk and his family, and may God guide America toward civility,” he said.
Bill Clinton calls for “serious introspection”
Former President Bill Clinton said in a social media post that he was “saddened and angered” by the shooting.
“I hope we all go through some serious introspection and redouble our efforts to engage in debate passionately, yet peacefully,” he said.
Melania Trump mourns Kirk, saying now, his children will be raised “with stories instead of memories”
First lady Melania Trump imagined what the loss of Kirk will mean to his children as they grow up.
“Charlie’s children will be raised with stories instead of memories, photographs instead of laughter, and silence where their father’s voice should have echoed,” she said in a post on X.
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox “heartbroken” over Kirk’s death, vows justice will be served
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, a Republican, said that he and his wife are “heartbroken” about Kirk’s death, and said they are praying for the conservative activist’s wife and two children.
“I just got off the phone with President Trump. Working with the FBI and Utah law enforcement, we will bring to justice the individual responsible for this tragedy,” he wrote in a social media post on X.
Sen. Mike Lee praises Kirk’s “boundless energy and great love for his country”
Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah told CBS News he spoke with Mr. Trump about Kirk, and said the president told him, “‘I’m sure they’ll stay after him,’” referring to the shooting suspect, and “‘they need to catch this guy.’”
“Whether you agree with him or not, you have to respect his boundless energy, his commitment to making the world a better place,” Lee also said.
In a post on X, Lee called Kirk an “American patriot, an inspiration to countless young people to stand up and defend the timeless truths that make our country great.”
He condemned Kirk’s murder, writing on X that it was “a cowardly act of violence, an attack on champions of freedom like Charlie, the students who gathered for civil debate, and all Americans who peacefully strive to save our nation.”
“The terrorists will not win,” he continued. “Charlie will. Please join me in praying for his wife Erika and their children. May justice be swift.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson says Kirk will be “sorely missed”
House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, told reporters that Kirk was “a close friend” and “confidant.”
“He will be sorely missed,” he said. “And we need every political leader to decry the violence and do it loudly.”
Eric Trump says Trump properties will fly flags at half-staff
Eric Trump described Kirk as a “dear friend” to the entire Trump family. He said all Trump properties would fly their flags at half-staff to honor him.
Donald Trump Jr.: “I love you brother”
Donald Trump Jr, who was close with Kirk, wrote on social media: “I love you brother. You gave so many people the courage to speak up and we will not ever be silenced.”
“There is no question that Charlie’s work and his voice helped my father win the presidency,” Trump Jr. wrote in a lengthy follow-up post. “He changed the direction of this nation…I know Charlie’s legacy doesn’t end here. He poured into millions of young people who will carry forward the torch he lit. He built something that will outlast him, because it was grounded in faith, in truth, and in courage. And as his friend, I will never forget him. I’ll honor him by loving boldly, speaking truth without fear, and continuing his spirit of courage. His fight lives on in all of us who loved him. This is an unimaginable loss.”
Gabby Giffords “horrified” to hear of Kirk’s shooting
Gabby Giffords, a former U.S. congresswoman from Arizona who suffered a serious brain injury when she was shot in 2011, said in a post on X, “I’m horrified to hear that Charlie Kirk was shot at an event in Utah. Democratic societies will always have political disagreements, but we must never allow America to become a country that confronts those disagreements with violence.”
House Oversight Chairman James Comer, Republican of Kentucky, said shooting was “awful”
GOP House Oversight Chairman James Comer of Kentucky said he watched the video of the shooting and said it was “awful.”
“It’s just, it’s just terrible. I mean, I think we’ve been saying for months now the political temperature is too high in America, and we’ve got to tone it back,” Comer told CBS News. “And political violence is on the rise. And, you know, I know that most of my colleagues and myself included are getting a lot more threatening calls, and it’s just, it’s a terrible environment now and again. I just feel awful for Charlie Kirk and his young family.”
GOP Rep. Virginia Foxx of North Carolina: Kirk meant a lot to “the right to speak freely and share your beliefs”
Rep. Virginia Foxx, Republican of North Carolina, told CBS News at the Capitol that “there’s no room for violence, and it’s terrible. She said she’s encouraged by the bipartisan response to the attack on Kirk and noted the House Oversight Committee had paused for a moment of prayer for Kirk.
Foxx told CBS News that Kirk represented “a category of people in our culture that’s very important,” and noted he was “very proud of the fact that he doesn’t have a college degree.”
“He means a lot, and he means a lot, not just to the conservative movement and to the, and to that aspect of our culture, but again, the right to speak freely and share your beliefs and be safe in our country, and it’s just so unfortunate. It’s unfortunate when anybody has violence perpetrated on them, whether you’re liberal or conservative. It’s just wrong.”
GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia: “There really aren’t words”
Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia said of Kirk’s shooting, “There really aren’t words,” and told reporters that it will “be hard for anybody to fill his shoes.”
“Charlie Kirk leaves a huge legacy,” she said.
GOP Rep. Chip Roy of Texas suggests Kirk’s killing “is going to be one of those things that, you know, changes some things”
Far right Republican Chip Roy said of Kirk, “This is a guy that you can disagree with him — I disagreed with him on most things.” But Roy admired that “he was trying to open up dialog and engage in civil discourse across college campus, appeal even those that disagree with them.”
Roy suggested that Kirk’s murder, “is going to be one of those things that you know changes some things.”
“I haven’t quite yet figured out how or what, but you know, it’s, you know, this one, this one hits,” he told reporters at the Capitol.
“We should be able to speak freely and speak with passion and regard about what we believe, without it coming to that. That’s the thing … we’re here for something bigger and greater than all of ourselves,” Charlie lived it, tweeted out three days ago about his faith in his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, so, I know where he is.”
He blamed “a country that’s turning its back on our collective faith as a nation,” saying that “this is why we’re seeing a breakdown and our ability to band together. We got to do something about that.”
GOP Rep. Anna Paulina Luna blames Democrats
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a Florida Republican, blamed Democrats for Kirk’s shooting. “They did cause this — that type of rhetoric. You calling people fascists? You basically saying that we’re Nazis, taking away people’s rights. Charlie Kirk was literally murdered,” she told reporters. Law enforcement does not have a suspect in custody.
Nancy Pelosi calls shooting “reprehensible”
House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, condemned the shooting in a post on X, calling it “reprehensible.”
“Political violence has absolutely no place in our nation,” she said, adding Americans should “hold the entire UVU community in our hearts as they endure the trauma of this gun violence.”
Pelosi, whose husband Paul Pelosi was bludgeoned with a hammer by a man who broke into Pelosi’s San Francisco home in 2022, has frequently condemned political violence.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom calls on Americans to “engage with each other”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who hosted Kirk on his podcast earlier this year, wrote on social media that Kirk’s killing is “a reminder of how important it is for all of us, across the political spectrum, to foster genuine discourse on issues that deeply affect us all without resorting to political violence.”
“The best way to honor Charlie’s memory is to continue his work: engage with each other, across ideology, through spirited discourse. In a democracy, ideas are tested through words and good-faith debate — never through violence,” Newsom said. “Honest disagreement makes us stronger; violence only drives us further apart and corrodes the values at the heart of this nation.”
Eric Trump, the third child of President Donald Trump, showed up in Hong Kong this week to hawk his latest crypto venture and, according to him, it’s going to the moon.
Trump spoke at Hong Kong’s Bitcoin Asia 2025 conference, the first stop in a planned series of crypto events across Asia featuring various Trump family members.
At the conference, Trump declared that his family “loves” the crypto community and downplayed concerns about the president’s conflicts of interest with the industry. He also predicted that Bitcoin would hit the $1 million price mark in the next few years (it’s always $1 million with these guys). And, unsurprisingly, he used the spotlight to plug his own project, American Bitcoin.
“We are one of the biggest Bitcoin mining companies on Earth,” Trump told the crowd, according to NBC News. “We mine about 3% of the world’s Bitcoin every single day.”
Trump launched American Bitcoin back in March with his older brother, Donald Trump Jr., and the energy infrastructure company Hut 8. American Bitcoin is an industrial-scale Bitcoin mining and strategic Bitcoin reserve development company. In a press release, the company said it aims to “become the world’s largest, most efficient pure-play Bitcoin miner.”
Trump made the comment, as the company plans to go public “very soon” through a merger with Gryphon Digital Mining, a Nasdaq-listed firm.
The Trump family’s crypto love affair
According to Trump, his family first got interested in crypto after being cut off from traditional banking services due to his father’s involvement in politics.
The crypto industry, which saw itself as unfairly targeted by the Biden administration, embraced the Trumps and threw an estimated $135 million behind getting Trump Sr. and other crypto-friendly candidates elected during the 2024 cycle, NBC reported.
And the scheme appears to have paid off. Since returning to office in January, Trump has moved to ease crypto regulations, appointed a so-called “crypto czar,” and even hosted a White House summit with industry leaders. Just last month, he signed the GENIUS Act, setting federal rules for stablecoins.
Bitcoin’s price has surged throughout Trump’s second term, sitting at $108,000 today, up 55% from about $70,000 on election day last year.
How much has President Trump made off of crypto?
The watchdog group State Democracy Defenders Fund estimates that, as of mid-March, Trump’s crypto assets were worth $2.9 billion on paper, accounting for roughly 37% of his total wealth.
Much of that fortune is thanks to ventures like the $TRUMP memecoin, which launched ahead of Trump’s second inauguration. His wife, Melania Trump, even has a memecoin of her own.
In May, Trump (officially) spent just 20 minutes in a private dinner near Washington for the top 220 buyers of $TRUMP, each of whom had shelled out an average of $1 million on the token, totaling $148 million.
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Eric Trump laid out a bluntly bullish, supply-and-demand case for why Bitcoin can reach $1 million, arguing that accelerating institutional access collides with Bitcoin’s fixed 21 million-coin cap, during a “Bitcoin Takes Over the World” session with David Bailey at the Bitcoin Asia conference in Hong Kong on August 29.
Bitcoin’s Path To $1 Million Is ‘No Question’
“Everybody wants Bitcoin. Everybody is buying Bitcoin. And that’s uh that’s an incredible thing. And that’s why I’ve always said that I really believe that in the next several years, Bitcoin will hit a million dollars. There’s no question Bitcoin hits a million dollars,” Trump told the audience, adding that “every person who wants an asset class and you have a very limited supply… it doesn’t take a genius to figure out where that goes.” He urged long-term accumulation over timing: “Buy right now. Shut your eyes. Hold it for the next five years and you are going to do terrifically well.”
Trump also recounted his private discussions with high-level investors in the lead-up to the conference: “When you’re in the room with certain people and and I had breakfast this morning with, you know, a couple of the most powerful people in the region and the hospitality space and you’re literally sitting there trying to explain to them what digital currency is, you realize how early we all are to this race […] I hear from people all the time, you know, should I get into cryptocurrency? Did I miss it? Am I too late? And I literally start laughing at them. I go, we haven’t even scratched the surface of what Bitcoin is going to be.”
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Trump’s core thesis combined two pillars: finite issuance and broadening distribution rails. He repeatedly emphasized Bitcoin’s provable scarcity—“There’s only 21 million coins… It’s finite. And that’s what makes it so damn powerful”—while asserting that channels for ownership have widened to large pools of capital. “In America, people are buying it for their retirement plans for the first time… you’ve got trillions of dollars of liquidity that’s opening up,” he said, citing custody at “major financial institutions,” as well as uptake by “the biggest banks,” “the biggest families,” “Fortune 500 companies,” and “sovereign wealth funds.” According to Trump, those cohorts are long-term holders: “Those retirement accounts are not letting Bitcoin go. Those companies are not letting Bitcoin go. Those sovereign wealth funds are not letting Bitcoin go.”
Pressed on what he is hearing in high-level rooms globally, Trump offered another anecdote—without naming the country—about a leader who “literally [takes] the entire energy supply of a major city in the middle of a winter and uses it to mine Bitcoin because that’s how much they believe in the asset.” He added, “You realize how early we all are […] more and more people are finding their inroads,” pointing to improving exchange usability and new consumer on-ramps. “We’re literally trying to get cryptocurrency to the masses,” he said about World Liberty Financial.
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Trump also highlighted his own commercial exposure to the sector. He described American Bitcoin as “one of the biggest Bitcoin mining companies on Earth,” claiming it produces “about 3% of the world’s Bitcoin every single day,” operates from “some of the cheapest energy in the world… in Texas,” and targets a “rough cost per… mining of Bitcoin… about $37,000,” with plans to list on Nasdaq “very soon.” Beyond mining, he praised his involvement with MetaPlanet alongside Simon Gerovich—whom he dubbed “the Michael Saylor of Asia”—saying the company had “single-handedly changed… the way [Japan and] a lot of Asia” view Bitcoin.
The conversation returned repeatedly to Bitcoin’s evolving utility narrative. While calling Bitcoin “digital gold” and “the greatest store of value that’s arguably ever been created,” Trump argued its use cases are broadening: “Every single day they’re figuring out new ways to kind of stake it, to get yield on it, to use it for everyday purchases […] you’re taking this digital gold […] and you’re putting massive utility behind Bitcoin.” He framed volatility as an ally for long-term buyers—“Volatility is our friend”—and, with a wink to Michael Saylor’s famous extremism, quipped, “I know obviously he jokes when he says that, but he’s right. Buy it, hold it, and I think you’re going to do extremely well.”
Former President Donald Trump on Monday is expected to announce the debut of a new crypto platform called World Liberty Financial that will be controlled by sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump.
The Republican nominee for president plans to discuss the new venture from his Mar-a-Lago resort at 8 p.m. ET on September 16, 50 days before Election Day. In recent weeks, the Trumps have been promoting the endeavor on social media, touting it as “the future of crypto.”
Trump’s 18-year-old son Barron, a first-year student at New York University, is identified as the project’s “DeFi visionary,” according to a white paper on the project obtained by cryptocurrency news site CoinDesk. DeFi, short for “decentralized finance,” is a term that refers to financial services offered through public blockchains.
“We’re embracing the future with crypto and leaving the slow and outdated big banks behind,” Trump said in a video posted Thursday on X from Mar-a-Lago.
The Trumps’ crypto plans jibe with the former president’s campaign pledge to make the U.S. the “crypto capital of the planet.” But the venture also raises concerns about how Donald Trump might use federal resources to promote a personal financial project.
“Taking a pro-crypto stance is not necessarily troubling; the troubling aspect is doing it while starting a way to personally benefit from it,” Jordan Libowitz, a spokesperson for the government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, told the Associated Press.
Libowitz added, “The success of this could be very tied to American economic policy.”
The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to CBS MoneyWatch’s request for comment.
What is World Liberty Financial?
Because the Trumps have released few details about World Liberty Financial, little is known about how the platform will operate. Crypto exchanges are platforms where investors can buy and sell digital currencies, similar to how a traditional stock exchange operates.
Eric Trump has said that the startup will promote “financial independence,” while Donald Trump Jr. has said it will “make finance great again.”
According to the project’s white paper obtained by CoinDesk, 70% of the company’s tokens will be reserved for company insiders, while the remaining 30% will be distributed through a public sale. A portion of those proceeds will go to a founding team, according to the report citing the white paper.
Why is Trump launching a crypto exchange?
Millions of Americans have invested in or traded cryptocurrencies, although these digital assets tend to attract young men, according to data from Pew Research Center.
Forty-three percent of American men ages 18 to 20 say they have invested in, traded or used cryptocurrency, compared to 16% of the general population.
In May, Trump announced that his campaign would begin accepting donations in cryptocurrency, part of an effort to build and solicit support from what he called a “crypto army.”
By contrast, while he served as president, Trump described himself as “not a fan” of cryptocurrency. In 2019, he tweeted that cryptocurrency “can facilitate unlawful behavior, including drug trade and other illegal activity.”
Megan Cerullo is a New York-based reporter for CBS MoneyWatch covering small business, workplace, health care, consumer spending and personal finance topics. She regularly appears on CBS News 24/7 to discuss her reporting.
Several high-ranking members of Donald Trump’s former administration recently released a stunning, highly detailed document outlining how they would overhaul the federal government should he be reelected president. The following are the biggest takeaways from the Heritage Foundation’s 922-page political playbook designed to bolster Trump’s power.
Google Announces Everyone’s Got To Chill With These Depressing Inquiries
Immigration through Ticketmaster: By privatizing immigration, it ensures all immigrants pay the service fee, order processing fee, and the occasional surge pricing fees. Dog militia: Every dog will receive a firearm to defend their country from tyrannical oppression. A must-try pesto recipe: Included on page 635 of the manifesto is a step-by-step guide for recreating Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts’ irresistible family pasta sauce. Official designation of the president as “America’s dad”: Project 2025 includes a chart showing the proposed family tree of the country, which would make Donald Trump the dad and all Americans his kids. Replace 30,000 federal employees with Eric Trump: He’ll run the Departments of Energy, Interior, and Labor while the Defense and the Joint Chiefs will be replaced by Tiffany. Mandatory embassy status for every McDonald’s: All franchises would be extraterritorial, sovereign lands of the United States of America, regardless of location. Bring back Gulags: But with a more American sounding name.
NEW YORK – History happened just as everyone was about to leave for the day.
Judge Juan M. Merchan had already summoned Donald Trump, his legal team and prosecutors into the courtroom where the former president has been on trial since mid-April. The judge said he planned to send the jury home in a few minutes — at 4:30 p.m. — with deliberations to resume the next morning.
Trump looked upbeat, having animated chats with his lawyers. A bell that rang in the courtroom whenever the jury had something to tell the court had been silent all day.
In the end, it wasn’t the bell that signaled something was up, but the jingling of a court officer’s keys — a ring full of them clanking as Maj. Michael McKee hustled past the judge’s bench and out a door into a private corridor.
Then, unexpectedly, the judge was back on the bench. There was another note from the jury, signed at 4:20 p.m. Merchan read it aloud.
“We the jury have reached a verdict,” it said, and asked for an extra 30 minutes to fill out the verdict form.
The “hurry up and wait” beat of deliberations gave way to anticipatory tension.
“I’m sure you will hear from the sergeant and the major and everyone else, but please let there be no outbursts of any kind when we take a verdict,” Merchan warned everyone in the courtroom. “I’ll be back out in a few minutes.”
As the minutes ticked by, defense lawyer Todd Blanche whispered to Trump, who was stone-faced, arms crossed across his chest. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, whose office brought the case, entered the courtroom and sat with aides in the gallery.
The courtroom was packed with people, among them dozens of reporters, sketch artists, members of the public and Trump’s son Eric. Bragg staffers crammed into the back row of the audience. Court personnel lined the wall next to the judge’s bench. Just two seats were unclaimed, occupied by a Van Gogh sunflower seat cushion and a newspaper that someone had not returned to claim.
Just before 5 p.m., the judge returned to the bench. He reread the portentous note and instructed court officers to bring the jury into the courtroom.
The six alternate jurors, who sat through the testimony but weren’t part of deliberations, were brought into the courtroom and seated in the first row of the audience.
The 12 jurors followed. Most looked straight ahead as they walked past Trump.
About a dozen court officers filled the room.
Then, the moment came. The courtroom was silent.
“How say you to the first count of the indictment, charging Donald J. Trump with falsifying business records in the first degree?” a court staffer asked. “Guilty,” the foreperson, whose name has not been publicly released, said in a steady voice.
The same answer, “guilty,” came again and again. Trump was convicted of all 34 counts of falsifying records at his company as part of a broad scheme to cover up payments made to a porn actor during the 2016 election.
As the verdict was read, and dozens of reporters transmitted the news to editors, wireless internet service in the courtroom suddenly became sluggish.
Monitors in another courtroom where more reporters were watching the proceedings on a closed-circuit television feed were turned off as the verdict was read, so members of the media and public who were there to observe could not see Trump’s face as the first “guilty” was read aloud, but a hushed gasp could be heard.
The video feed resumed after the last charge was read aloud, showing Trump sitting with an expressionless stare.
Trump began slowly looking around the room and glanced, still expressionless, at jurors as they affirmed they found him guilty on all counts.
Blanche rested his face in his hands and furrowed his brow.
Merchan thanked the jury for its work, something common at the end of any trial.
“You were engaged in a very stressful and difficult task,” he said, adding that the weeks of the trial were “a long time to be away from your jobs, your families, all of your responsibilities.”
The jury was then excused. Trump stood as jurors filtered out of the courtroom, appearing to be looking at them one by one as they passed in front of him.
In the hallway outside the 15th-floor courtroom, cheering could be heard from the street below, where a small group of Trump supporters and detractors had gathered.
As the former president and presumptive Republican nominee walked out of the courtroom, Eric Trump put a hand on his back.
Then, after watching mum as the verdict came, Donald Trump turned to the news cameras awaiting him in the hallway.
“I’m a very innocent man,” he said, before vowing to keep contesting a case he has repeatedly called “a disgrace.”
“We’ll fight to the end, and we’ll win,” he said.
His sentencing is scheduled for July 11, likely in the same courtroom where history was made Thursday.
Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
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Michael R. Sisak, Jennifer Peltz, Michelle Price And Jill Colvin, Associated Press
(CNN) — Former President Donald Trump has posted a $175 million bond as he appeals the judgment against him in the New York civil fraud case brought by state Attorney General Letitia James.
Trump’s bond pauses any action that James could take against Trump’s properties in response to the judgement until at least September, when the state appeals court also set a schedule to hear his appeal of the $464 million verdict against him.
The bond is underwritten by Knight Specialty Insurance, a California-based insurance company, but the court document does not list the collateral that Trump used to secure the bond.
Last month, Trump said at a news conference he would use cash to cover the bond, but claimed that he also wanted to use cash to fund his reelection campaign.
Yet asked if he planned to start personal funds into his presidential campaign, Trump said, “First of all, it’s none of your business,” before adding, “I might do that. I have the option.”
The bond amount was lowered by several hundred million dollars by a state appeals court last month after Trump’s attorneys argued that covering the full bond on the $464 million verdict against him was not feasible. (Trump himself was ordered to pay $454 million; the $464 million includes the disgorgement for his adult sons Don Jr. and Eric.)
In January, Judge Arthur Engoron fined Trump and his co-defendants, including his adult sons and his company, $464 million, finding they fraudulently inflated the value of the former president’s assets to obtain better loan rates. Trump had been given 30 days to post the bond for the full amount of the judgement while he appealed, as is required by state law, but his attorneys said he could not find an insurance company to underwrite that large of a bond. That prompted James to take steps to prepare to seize Trump’s assets in the event Trump failed to post bond.
When the 30-day deadline hit, however, the New York appeals court stepped in and lowered the bond to $175 million, giving Trump an additional 10 days.
“As promised, President Trump has posted bond,” Trump attorney Alina Habba said in a statement. “He looks forward to vindicating his rights on appeal and overturning this unjust verdict.”
Trump also posted a $91.6 million bond last month in the E. Jean Carroll defamation case while he appeals that verdict against him.
A judge’s ruling on Friday in Donald Trump’s civil fraud trial deals a severe blow to the former president, who is now barred from running the New York-based company that for decades has served as the hub of his global business empire.
In a 92-page decision, New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron barred Trump from serving as an officer or director of any corporation or other legal entity in the state for three years, while his sons, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., were banned for two years, according to the ruling.
Trump and The Trump Organization were also ordered to pay penalties of $354 million in what is one of the stiffest corporate sanctions in New York history. The total jumps to $453.5 million when pre-judgment interest is factored in.
Engoron ruled last fall that Trump and his company, the Trump Organization, “repeatedly” violated state fraud law by systemically misrepresenting the value of some of his properties and his overall net worth. That enabled his business to obtain loan rates and other financial terms that they otherwise wouldn’t have received, New York Attorney General Letitia James had claimed in filing suit against Trump.
More specifically, James’ allegations included falsifying business records, issuing false financial statements and insurance fraud. James’ office claimed that Trump’s misrepresentations led to the company collecting $370 million in “ill-gotten gains.”
Friday’s ruling also appoints Judge Barbara Jones to continue in her role as an independent monitor of Trump’s businesses for at least three years. It orders the addition of an independent director of compliance at the Trump Organization, with Engoron ruling that this person will be responsible for “ensuring good financial and accounting practices.”
“[T]he more evidence there is of defendants’ ongoing propensity to engage in fraud, the more need there is for the Court to impose stricter injunctive relief,” Engoron wrote in his verdict. “This is not defendants’ first rodeo.”
It’s possible Trump could appoint a trusted adviser to run his business during the three-year ban, noted John Coffee, a professor at Columbia Law School and an expert on corporate governance and white collar crime.
“I doubt that he can appoint someone else without the court’s approval, but one candidate that he will think of is Ivanka, his daughter, who is not a defendant,” Coffee told CBS MoneyWatch. “When Martha Stewart was barred from serving as a director of her own business, which like Trump had her name on it, she appointed her daughter as CEO for three years.”
Ivanka Trump, once an executive at The Trump Organization, was originally named as a defendant in the fraud suit, but an appellate court later dismissed allegations against her due to the state’s statute of limitations.
Trump: “unAmerican judgment against me”
In a statement, Trump, who is expected to appeal, decried the verdict, calling it “unAmerican” and “a Complete and Total SHAM.”
“There were No Victims, No Damages, No Complaints,” Trump said in his statement. “Only satisfied Banks and Insurance Companies (which made a ton of money), GREAT Financial Statements, that didn’t even include the most valuable Asset – The TRUMP Brand.”
The decision comes just weeks after a federal jury ruled that Trump must pay $83.3 million in damages for defamatory statements he made denying that he sexually assaulted the writer E. Jean Carroll. Trump is also facing numerous additional legal cases.
“These bills are really racking up for Trump,” said CBS News legal analyst Katrina Kaufman shortly before the verdict was announced. James “asked for a lifetime ban on Trump in New York’s real estate industry, which is huge for him. This is where he started as a businessman.”
Trump could see the damages reduced on appeal, Columbia’s Coffee said. But to appeal, Trump would have to post a bond covering the $354 million in penalties, he added.
“That will be costly,” Coffee said. “Some banks will post the bond for him, for a hefty fee, but they will want security that they can liquidate easily, and that may require some sale of some of his assets.”
Trump and his legal team had long expected a defeat, with the former president decrying the case as “rigged” and a “sham” and his lawyers laying the groundwork for an appeal before the judgment was even issued.
In 2023, Engoron found that Trump and his company overstated the valuations of many properties by hundreds of millions. The judge cited the Palm Beach, Florida, real estate assessor’s valuation of his Mar-a-Lago club at as low as $18 million — an amount on which Trump paid local property taxes. At the same time, Trump valued the property at as much as $714 million on his annual statements of financial conditions.
Separately, Trump also faces charges in four criminal proceedings. The first trial, which centers on a payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels in 2016, is scheduled to begin in Manhattan on March 25. He has pleaded not guilty in all four cases.
Aimee Picchi is the associate managing editor for CBS MoneyWatch, where she covers business and personal finance. She previously worked at Bloomberg News and has written for national news outlets including USA Today and Consumer Reports.
PALM BEACH, FL—Terrified by the prospect that the former president could go away forever if he didn’t pay, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. reportedly helped their father raise $83.3 million Monday by asking their dad for money. “Wait, I know where we can get some cash—we can ask Dad!” said Donald Jr., the oldest of the Trump boys, whose face immediately lit up with excitement as he grabbed his brother’s hands and explained that the solution to all of his father’s legal and financial woes was just right down the hall. “Dad probably has tons of money! He wears suits all of the time. Once, he even gave me 20 whole dollars on my birthday! He’s a really important man. I know he’ll give us the money—we just have to promise to be extra good and eat all our meat for a week.” At press time, the Trump boys had only $83,299,975 to go after checking their father’s wallet.
NYPD Arrests Trump After Routine Stop-And-Frisk Turns Up Unlicensed Handgun, 400 Mg Of Ketamine
The radically liberal late night host Jimmy Kimmel has long been one of the most anti-Donald Trump people in the entertainment world. However, he hit a new low during his show on Thursday night when he openly fantasized about Trump dying.
What a disingenuous, hypocritical clown. Kimmel whined that A Rodgers said he was on the Epstein list and says calling someone a pedophile isn’t something you say without facts. “The truth still matters.”
Less than two minutes later, Jim insinuates Trump is a pedo… 🙄
Kimmel spent much of his opening monologue attacking Trump, touching on his legal battles as he showed once again just how obsessed he is with the former president.
“Let me tell you something — if those three judges he appointed to the Supreme Court take this case and rule against him, he is going to blow a whale-sized windmill out of his a**. I mean, it might actually kill him,” Kimmel said.
“Sometimes I wonder, once Trump is dead and and gone and buried on the 18th hole of one of his golf courses, will things get better?” he continued. “Or will we have a whole new crop of MAGA brains to deal with?”
Kimmel also talked about Trump being photographed with red splotches on his hands earlier this week, saying that this is “a common symptom of syphilis.” Referring to Trump once saying that avoiding STDs was his “personal Vietnam,” Kimmel added, “but if he has syphilis, that would mean the only Vietnam he avoided was Vietnam.”
Jimmy Kimmel is a sick, disgusting man…”During his monologue, Kimmel speculated that red spots on Trump’s hand are symptoms of syphilis while also joking about the funeral of former first lady Melania Trump’s mother.” Breitbart News
Sinking even lower, Kimmel said that the former First Lady Melania Trump wouldn’t be in danger of getting syphilis if her husband has it because the couple “hasn’t slept in the same bed since… how old is Barron?”
“It’s probably ketchup,” Kimmel stated. “He probably got his hands in a container of curly fries or something.”
Kimmel went on to speculate how Trump would handle it if one of his political opponents was pictured with red splotches on their hands.
“He’d be all over it. He’d talk about it for years. He’d be posting in all-caps about ‘Meatball Ron DeSyphilis’ and ‘Nikki Herpes,’” Kimmel said. “But they haven’t brought it up.”
Earlier this week, Kimmel had a full meltdown over Trump’s massive victory in the Iowa Caucus.
“Even though he barely spent any time in Iowa, he somehow made voters love him more,” Kimmel said, according to Newsweek. “It’s the same strategy he used raising [his sons] Eric and Don Jr.”
Kimmel then played a clip in which Trump celebrated his victory by saying, “These caucuses are your personal chance to score the ultimate victory over all of the liars, cheaters, thugs, perverts, frauds, crooks, freaks, creeps and other quite nice people.”
“It’s like he’s reading his own LinkedIn résumé,” Kimmel said in response. “I mean, seriously. It’s no self-awareness whatsoever.”
After playing a clip of insults that Trump had leveled at his detractors, Kimmel concluded by saying, “Yeah, that’s him. That’s exactly him. That’s the guy.”
Check out that monologue in the video below.
Kimmel’s latest below-the-belt attacks on Trump shows just how afraid the media is of the former president coming out victorious in this year’s presidential election. He can rant against Trump all he wants to, but in the end, he’s not going to sway any voters, as the few people who still watch Kimmel are just as crazily liberal as the late night host is.
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An Ivy leaguer, proud conservative millennial, history lover, writer, and lifelong New Englander, James specializes in the intersection of… More about James Conrad
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Former U.S. President Donald Trump attends the trial of himself, his adult sons, the Trump Organization and others in a civil fraud case brought by state Attorney General Letitia James, at a Manhattan courthouse, in New York City on Oct. 3, 2023.
Shannon Stapleton | Reuters
The New York attorney general on Friday asked a judge to ban former President Donald Trump from the state’s real estate industry for life, ban him from serving as an officer or director of a New York corporation and for him to be fined $370 million.
Attorney General Letitia James is also seeking a five-year ban on Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, Donald Trump’s sons, from working in New York’s real estate industry, according to a new court filing.
The filing comes weeks after the conclusion of testimony in the civil fraud case in Manhattan Supreme Court.
James accuses Donald Trump, his two sons and the Trump Organization of a broad scheme to misstate the true values of various real estate assets for financial benefit, including better loan terms.
The attorney general alleges that Donald Trump falsely inflated his statements of net worth by anywhere between $812 million and $2.2 billion because of those false valuations.
The fine James seeks includes $168 million in interest payments the former president allegedly avoided through fraud.
Read more CNBC politics coverage
Donald Trump denies the claims, and says they are politically motivated.
Alina Habba, a lawyer for Trump, in a statement Friday called James’ new filing “absurd” and that it “can be described as nothing less than a form of politically motivated persecution of the leading Republican presidential candidate.”
“My clients did nothing wrong, there were no victims and the case presented has proven that his statements were under valued,” Habba said.
In their own filings Friday, Trump’s attorney argue that the evidence at trial does not support a finding that he intended to defraud lenders or others.
Judge Arthur Engoron is expected to issue his ruling in the case in the coming weeks.
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Trump plans to call Palm Beach real-estate broker Lawrence Moens at his NY fraud trial next week.
Moens has sworn Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and “kings” would pay $1B for the club, where he’s a member.
On Friday, the judge OK’d Moens’ testimony despite the state saying it will waste “an entire day.”
Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and “kings” would pay $1 billion dollars for Mar-a-Lago, according to a Palm Beach real-estate broker whom Donald Trump plans to call to testify next week, as an expert defense witness in his New York civil fraud trial.
“It’s like a fantasy list,” the broker, Lawrence Moens, said in a pre-trial deposition over the summer, describing the dozen-or-so ultra-billionaires he thinks would spring that high for the property.
“I could dream up anyone from Elon Musk to Bill Gates and everyone in between,” he told lawyers for the state attorney general’s office during the July deposition, previewing next week’s trial testimony. “Kings, emperors, heads of state.”
“If they want the best house in the country, that would be one of the top two or three that would be available if they were for sale,” he added, according to a transcript.
“I wish he’d let me sell it, but it’s not for sale,” he said.
Moens is scheduled to testify on Trump’s behalf Tuesday in the ongoing trial, where lawyers for state Attorney General Letitia James are trying to prove the former president exaggerated his net worth by as much as $3.6 billion a year in a decade’s worth of financial statements to banks, insurers and tax officials.
Mar-a-Lago is chief among those exaggerations.
Donald Trump allegedly inflated the value of his Palm Beach resort in financial documents by as much as $714 million.New York attorney general’s office
The AG’s office alleges that as part of an effort to trick banks into charging him better interest rates, Trump intentionally valued the property at astronomical levels, saying it was worth as much as $739 million. That’s the number he used in 2018, when state officials say it was only worth $25 million.
In doing so, the state alleges, Trump relied on the false premise that Mar-a-Lago was an unrestricted property. Trump misrepresented that he could develop the 17 waterfront acres even though the former president had personally signed deeds donating away his residential development rights for tax purposes, the state alleges.
Trump has fixated on the value of Mar-a-Lago during the trial’s nine weeks, as a matter of personal pride and as part of his defense that his net-worth statements actually underestimated the value of his properties.
At issue now, in the non-jury, civil trial, is whether the over-valuations of Mar-a-Lago and other Trump properties fit the legal definition of fraud under New York criminal law, and if so, how many millions in ill-gotten gains he must pay back.
The state alleges that over the course of a decade, Trump pocketed more than $250 million in interest savings and property sales proceeds that he’d never have had if he’d told banks what his assets were really worth.
The state fought hard on Friday against Trump’s side calling Moens as an expert witness.
Kevin Wallace, a lead lawyer on the case for James, called the broker “a friend of Trump” whose valuation of the club can’t be recreated or tested.
The judge had already found in his ruling from September that those deed restrictions severely limited the club’s value, Wallace noted.
“The defendants now want to spend a whole day arguing that you’re wrong,” he complained.
“And that Mar-a-Lago should be valued at $1 billion because Elon Musk might want to go to Palm Beach,” he added, sounding exasperated.
“And that’s what we’re going to do,” the judge responded. “I’m very reluctant to allow this but it’s the defense case.”
Former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida.Charles Trainor Jr./Miami Herald/Tribune News Service via Getty Images
An unbiased witness?
Moens is likely to be questioned on the witness stand Tuesday about whether he can give a truly unvarnished view of Mar-a-Lago’s worth. He and Trump go back a long ways, and a lot of money has passed back and forth between them.
“And did you receive a commission?” Moens was asked during the July deposition.
“Well, it was a few million dollars,” he answered. “I don’t remember the amount.”
“Do you recall receiving $225,000 for consulting work” from Trump, an attorney for the AG, Alex Finkelstein, asked the broker, showing him Trump Organization documents saying that money crossed hands in 2014.
Moens answered that he’d have to check his records.
Moens also testified that he has been a broker for Eric Trump, and a member of Mar-a-Lago since 1996, months after it opened. He knows Donald Trump, Jr., and Ivanka Trump, who he testified was “a very lovely person.”
“I’ve known her since she was a little girl,” Moens said.
He was more circumspect about Trump, though.
“He’s someone I’ve known for probably three decades, maybe longer,” he told the state’s lawyers, when asked how he’d describe his relationship to the former president.
“How do you describe the word ‘friend?’” the state’s lawyer then asked.
“I have very few friends, so I would describe them as people that are very close to me, that I see often, that I spent time with, that I have a relationship with,” Moens answered.
“Is Donald Trump one of those people?” the broker was then asked.
“I don’t see Donald Trump enough or spend enough time with Donald Trump to call him a friend,” he answered.
Asked “What would you call him?” Moens added, ‘I’d like to think he’s my friend, but I would call him someone that I’ve had an association with for many years.”
