The Pomp Podcast - CZ's Lawyer Reveals The Truth About Trump's Pardon | Teresa Goody Guillén

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Starting point is 00:00:37 Wayfair. With Wayfair, there's no what if. Just style you love and quality you can trust. Visit wayfair.ca. Wayfair, every style, every home. What's up everyone? This is Anthony Pompliano. Many of you know me as Pomp. You're listening to the Pomp Podcast, which is my effort to find the most interesting people in the world and sit with them for hours while I ask questions in an effort to learn. So it would mean the world to me if you would subscribe to the show on your favorite audio platform, watch episodes on YouTube, and tell your friends and family about the podcast. My goal is to help millions learn from the world's most interesting people. So let's get into today's episode. Anthony Pompliano runs Pomp Investments. All views of him and the guests on his podcast

Starting point is 00:01:20 are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Pomp Investments. You should not treat any opinion expressed by Pomp or his guests as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of his personal opinion. This podcast is for informational purposes only. So he was pardoned for justice, no fraud and no victims, no criminal history or anything like that. So he was treated much differently than everybody else has ever been treated historically. Is there some payment, like maybe Trump's got like a secret Bitcoin wallet and either CZ or Binance sent money directly? Or is there anything like that that you think has credence that is maybe more of like the conspiratorial critiques that

Starting point is 00:02:04 people have talked about? What's going on, guys? Today, we have a very important and serious conversation. I'm sitting down with Teresa Goody Gein. She's CZ's personal lawyer, and she's been very involved in the pardon that CZ received. I've seen tons of controversy online as to the pardon he received, how he received it, whether it was pay to play, and if there was any corruption involved. I reached out to Teresa and I said, why don't we sit down? Let me ask you all of the questions that people have, the hard ones and the easy ones. And that's what we're going to do in today's conversation. Here's my conversation with Teresa Goodygean. Teresa, you're here to give us the inside scoop on CZ, the pardon, and answer a lot of questions from many critics. Help us

Starting point is 00:02:43 understand what was CZ charged with and what was the rationale behind him getting this pardon? So he was charged with Binance's failure to implement and maintain anti-money laundering programs, compliance programs. And so to be clear, this is a regulatory infraction. It's a compliance issue. There's no money laundering involved. It's just the failure for Binance to implement an anti-money laundering program. And he was pardoned because he never should have been prosecuted in the first place. And even the president said himself when he had pardoned him that he didn't understand him to have committed any crimes and that he shouldn't have been prosecuted. So he was pardoned for justice, basically to bring justice. He's the only person

Starting point is 00:03:36 who has ever been prosecuted and then worse, sent to prison for this specific charge or anything similar with with the characteristics of like no fraud and no victims no criminal history or anything like that so um he was treated much differently than everybody else has ever been treated historically why do you think that he was treated differently i think it was part of the war on crypto and at that point um this was close after the ftx uh collapse and um and and they I think that the war on crypto had to go against somebody and they had to prosecute somebody and really persecute someone. And unfortunately, that ended up being Binance and CZ. Now, if I understand this correctly, the company itself was doing this or not doing this. And

Starting point is 00:04:32 that's why the regulators went after them. Is it common for the executive to be held liable? On one hand, I could see people saying, hey, the CEO should be held liable for what the business does. On the other hand, my understanding just on some cursory Google searches is like, you know, large banks or other financial institutions have been charged with similar things, but the executives themselves have not been pulled into it. What is kind of like the standard treatment and difference between the executive and the company? That's exactly right, that the executives are never brought, are never prosecuted for this. And so name your big financial institution, it has most likely been charged with either these same violations or more egregious ones.

Starting point is 00:05:15 And we don't see any of their CEOs being prosecuted. And that never happens. And no other executive has ever been prosecuted for this for this particular these particular crimes. And that's not generally how how the justice system works. So let's hold constant that, OK, we understand what he did. We know it's a fact that he got the pardon. I think that there is a plethora of questions. I've seen people talk in private conversation. I've seen people talk on social media. I've seen the media write articles about, you know, how did the pardon come together? Was there some sort of pay to play? Was there some sort of corruption involved? Help people understand maybe like the process to getting a pardon. And then we can talk about

Starting point is 00:05:57 the specific critiques in this case? Yes. So to get a pardon, you have to fill out an application and you have to write up the justification. And there's a variety of people who look through it and have to opine on it. The Justice Department, there's a pardon attorney and a pardon office, as well as the White House Counsel's Office. And so a lot of legal review goes into this before it can be granted. And so all of that review has to take place with the application that you submit. So it's a relatively standardized process. When you submit the application, who gets it? Is there like a pardon office? Is there somebody in charge of that? Does it go right to the president? Like, I'm assuming that the president isn't like sifting through hundreds or thousands of

Starting point is 00:06:50 applications? Like who is part of that process? So the pardons can go through in a variety of ways and it just kind of depends on how the pardon gets transferred, whether it's to the specific pardon attorney or through the DOJ's website or some other, you know, avenue to just get it to one of the people who's going to be reviewing it. So I know that different people have submitted their pardons in a variety of different ways, but the president doesn't receive them and, you know, himself initially that I'm aware of. So. Got it. And so I guess what I'm trying to understand is like you guys put together an application, you submit the application. There are people who view this and make a recommendation to the president saying, hey,

Starting point is 00:07:40 this pardon should be looked at or you should go ahead and pardon this person. Or like, you know, how much discretion is it like a unilateral decision from the president versus there's like a process and some sort of recommendation that happens from whether it's staff, administration, DOJ or somebody like that? I don't know for certain how it all plays out exactly inside of the White House, but, you know, there are certain people that have to sign off on it. So the White House counsel's office will have to sign off on it. The pardon attorney would have to sign off on it. And of course, it's like it's the president's ultimate decision. So he has to sign off on it um and you know so it's a it's a variety of these different people working together but i

Starting point is 00:08:20 don't have you know i wasn't in any of the rooms with any of those conversations or anything so i don't have any any specific information about that today's episode is brought to you by arch public as markets shift headlines break and interest rates swing one thing stays true opportunity is everywhere at arch public they help you do more than just buy and hold yes their dynamic accumulation algorithms are built for long-term investors. But where they really shine? They're arbitrage algos designed to farm volatility and turbocharge your core positions. The best part of ArchPublic's products is they're free. Yeah, you heard that right. Try ArchPublic for free. Take advantage of wild moves and assets like Solana, Sui, and Doge, and use them to stack more Bitcoin completely

Starting point is 00:09:02 hands-free. ArchPublic is already a preferred partner with Coinbase, Kraken, Gemini, and Robinhood and their team is here to help you build smarter in any market. Visit ArchPublic today at ArchPublic.com and your portfolio will thank you. I see. So if I had some of the people who I would put in the credit bucket and they were here and they were talking to you, I think the big questions they would have is it looks like CZ, Binance, World Liberty Financial, Trump. There's just a lot of misunderstanding, maybe if you're very kind, or there could be potential pay to play for a pardon if you're very aggressive in evaluating this. Can you walk through what the defense is for some of these critiques? I don't think I have to repeat all of them.

Starting point is 00:09:50 You guys have all seen this stuff. But how should people think about the business dealings in relationship to some sort of party? It's really just a pile up of a lot of false statements, misstatements, sometimes assumptions, if you want to give them the benefit of the doubt. But oftentimes, they're just false statements, and they've continued to snowball, and they continue to just pile up on one another. And I think when you're reading these, if you look and see, is there any kind of verification in here? And what is this based on? And you'll see a media report citing a media report citing a media report. And there's no basis for it other than sources that are close to somebody, which is kind of code for, you know, not a strong source.

Starting point is 00:10:40 So, one, you know, they continue the media continues to refer to World Liberty as Trump's Trump's company. And that's just not I haven't seen anything to show me that that's true. Um, I see on the website, you know, an emeritus status and, you know, I've seen reports of a minority stake by some Trump entity, but I haven't seen anything that shows me exactly that this, you know, for one, that this is even Trump's, um, company. And so you start with that, that people put together, put down in the lay in the sand, that that's a that's a valid premise. But it's not. It's got these baked in assumptions and I would say false statements. And then, you know, then you build on that and you say that there was some pay to play. But but where and how, you know, there is nothing that I see that doesn't defy common sense. right. As a, as a basis, for example, you know, that, uh, USDC one, the stable coin,

Starting point is 00:11:43 the world Liberty issued, um, is on the finance chain. Well, that's, that's open. It's public. Lots of people do it, you know, and just because I list something on Craigslist, it doesn't mean that I therefore have some special relationship with the former CEO of, um, Craigslist, you know? And so it's those kinds of things that just don't really make any sense. And people are making these assumptions that just show a fundamental misunderstanding of how either business works or how blockchain works. And then there is also the allegation about Binance and that stake that MGX paid in USD1 for of Binance. and that somehow that shows some relationship, and that is finance and CZ giving the president money. And that also shows a fundamental lack of understanding of how stablecoins work and what

Starting point is 00:12:49 the business model is, because that's similar to saying, you know, that you buy wheat from me and you pay in a Swiss franc, and therefore I'm investing in Swiss francs and I'm paying to play, you know with the politicians in in switzerland and you know that doesn't make any sense and that's the same it's like exactly the same thing that's being argued here so it's it's these fundamental misunderstandings and then um i think oftentimes people who understand how um kind of ridiculous these allegations are they don't uh defend them as as strongly as you might otherwise because they don't make any sense. But then the people who don't understand how it works continues to repeat them over and over again, and then it continues to snowball. And so I feel like

Starting point is 00:13:41 that's what we've seen here. You're a lawyer, a very good lawyer. I've always wanted to be a lawyer. I'm not smart enough to be one, but I figured I could grill you a little bit. And so So is USD one on other chains or just on the Binance chain? And you're very smart. And, you know, and that's exactly it is on other chains. And that's another point, too. And other exchanges hold it. And so if you're going to say that it's on that, you know, some other some other exchange has it.

Starting point is 00:14:12 And therefore, everybody should be arguing that they're they're giving the president money and they're doing these horrible things. But they're not right. It's only Binance. Okay. Have other crypto exchange CEOs received pardons from the Trump administration? Yeah, I believe Arthur Hayes did. I think he was the CEO. And BitMEX, the company BitMEX did as well. And by the way, we've been pardoning people for, and companies, juridical people also from the beginning of our, you know, the country all the way back to England. Same thing with civil offenses both criminal and civil and people and entities so um that's been happening for a long

Starting point is 00:14:53 time it's only more recent that it became more focused on criminal and and individuals and um there was the uh silk road ross earlbrook he was pardoned as well so there's other people who have done this it's not just like a cz thing okay exactly let me switch back around to the critic side uh when those people i think hear this they say okay got it there's a lot of smoke here where there's smoke there's usually fire um is there some payment like maybe trump's got like a secret bitcoin wallet and either cz or binance sent money directly or there's something that eventually will come out that is you know not part of the like more publicly known details is there anything like that that you think has credence that is maybe more of like the conspiratorial uh critiques

Starting point is 00:15:41 that people have talked about um so well i know cz so i just i just know that that would never happen that's just not who he is um and i i yeah i just know that that wouldn't happen um i i think enough of the president i don't know him um of course i would love to but i don't know him and and i i can't imagine that that's something that he would do either so um i don't know if he's got a bitcoin wallet you know that would be uh somewhat surprising to me as well yeah and you know the way that people can track everything if that were the case we would be seeing like we would see that tracked so you know i think that that would already be reported on in some really verifiable incredible way and that's one of the beauties of of you know just distributed

Starting point is 00:16:32 ledger technology is that transparency so um yeah no i i nothing like that is happening yeah got it and so when you look at um you know kind of all of these critiques that people have it sounds like most of them are things where uh people are trying to pin some sort of indirect benefit or indirect you know kind of transaction on this part in process but i i've learned some in this conversation of like, there's multiple people involved in the approval process. It's not just the president themselves unilaterally doing this. Other people have to sign off on it. And also, too, is some of the things that people are saying, maybe there's a payment made in USD1 or whatever, but it's also happening on other chains or other people are using this stuff.

Starting point is 00:17:15 And so it's kind of like you're picking one example out of many, but you're trying to pin a story. Yeah. Can you imagine, too, if the opposite was true? If Binance said, no, you know you can't put usd1 on here even you can't pay for the stake in usd1 or anything like that as for a crypto exchange i mean how could they possibly say no um so you put a you know flip the the shoe on the other foot and it's it's uh kind of shows a little bit more how ridiculous i think the argument is all right now i've known cz for a number of years now um i've always known him to be a very, uh, cool, calm, collected, uh, kind person test the person going through something like this. Um, you know, I, I did an interview with him, uh, earlier this year where he talked

Starting point is 00:18:02 about, I mean, he came from a village with no electricity or running water to, uh, allegedly one of the wealthiest people in the world. And to go through this whole process, I can't imagine that's easy. How did he handle this? Right. I think that's like one of the pieces that kind of gets lost in all of this is there's like the legal process the political process the the facts the critiques the media etc like there's still a person you know he's got a family he he's dealing with the human emotions he went to prison you know all this kind of stuff i gotta imagine there's a lot of ups and downs throughout this entire thing yeah that's another thing that's so impressive about him and so i feel like even as his lawyer i had more ups and downs than he did because he is

Starting point is 00:18:41 So, so calm and collected and he takes, you know, everything in stride and, you know, I've, I'm an optimist, but there's, you know, his optimism is off the charts and just kind of always sees the silver lining in things. And, um, yeah, I think I'm very impressed. I don't, I don't know anybody who could handle it quite like he, he has as, as common collected and as, you know, staying so grateful for, for everything that he has. And, and I, I'm so glad that you said that because sometimes it's so infuriating standing and watching people do things or treat them a certain way, or, or I, I read things that I know are completely false

Starting point is 00:19:26 or say things that I know are completely false. And it's, this is a human being, right? And so, with a family and people forget about that. So I think it's something so important to remember the humanity of everyone. And when you're attacking somebody or, you know, defaming them or whatever you're doing, or you're, you're arguing to, or trying to keep them from getting something, a pardon, then it's a human with a family and they, they don't deserve that. probably you're being nice to i was hoping that you were going to say something that like he lost his temper you know he's a good looking guy he's wealthy he's always got his everything under control i was like envious of i was hoping there was like a flaw that you were going to uh to

Starting point is 00:20:12 uncover there um i also saw online i had to check this twice because i thought that maybe somebody like made it with ai or some sort of like doctored uh image elizabeth warren came out and she made a bunch of claims basically dunking on cz in the situation and and uh all that both sides of the political aisle do that constantly. So, you know, I don't think a lot of people kind of thought about that, but then I saw a response from, I think it was either you, CZ, et cetera, that basically was like, Hey, you're saying things that are inaccurate. And then it got real juicy because then she responded again and it kind of became this like a soap opera of back and forth of, you know, who's right, who's wrong. Can you just walk us through like this scenario and is

Starting point is 00:20:51 it normal for a politician to kind of inject themselves and the responses and kind of what happened there? Yeah, well, so she put up on social media that, you know, he had been convicted of a crime that he wasn't convicted of. And then also that he had taken place in this like pay to play, like he had done something wrong in the way that he went about obtaining, you know, his pardon and requesting his pardon, and which was additional kind of impugning criminal liability on him, um, which was also not accurate. And so you, you can't just go and say things about people and allege that they violated various crime or committed various crimes that they haven't committed multiple crimes when, when that's not true and you have no basis for it. And, um,

Starting point is 00:21:46 so I think it's important that it doesn't matter who you are, you know, yes, there are certain immunities and things that apply to people in government or in different particular positions, but they only apply in some circumstances. And this is actually an area where I'm hoping that we pay a little bit more attention because, you know, the immunity that's given to these folks is not what our founding fathers had wanted. And if you go back and you read, you know, what they were talking about when they talked about, for example, the speech or debate clause, or I mean, that's a big part of it, and how that, how politicians particularly can really impact people's lives, their livelihood, by the things that they say in that immunity. And Joseph Story's

Starting point is 00:22:39 commentaries on the Constitution actually really crystallized this about the concern. And I think that's something that we've hit on today. I know it's a little off topic, but this is, I mean, this is exactly kind of, she's, she is getting to the heart of what our founding fathers were concerned about. Hi, I'm Matt Hogan, CIO of crypto asset manager Bitwise. Look, crypto can be confusing. There's so much noise and the space changes so quickly. That's why every week I write a five minute memo on the biggest stories impacting crypto in plain English. Why is Bitcoin up or down. What are people missing? Where should investors look next? Get the lowdown every week. Sign up to get the weekly CIO memo delivered straight to your inbox.

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Starting point is 00:24:50 When you think about this situation, it does feel like it was a political situation in terms of crypto and kind of regulation and the crackdown that we saw over the last couple of years. Obviously, the new administration is taking a very different path. It seems like investors, market participants, and many politicians, frankly, are excited about, hey, we have a tailwind now for American innovation and all this stuff. That political nature sometimes feels like it can be a pendulum, right? You kind of swing very wildly with the last administration. Now you're almost going the opposite direction with this one. Is your expectation we're going to continue to see that go back and forth and people in the

Starting point is 00:25:26 industry should kind of expect volatility there? Or do you think that once you start to get a tailwind, it's really hard to kind of switch back to being very aggressive and kind of go after an industry. Yeah, I hope the pendulum isn't going to continue to go back and forth that way. And I think, you know, now that we're able to get some of the innovation going again in the United States that will solidify things. So like, you know, SEC Chairman Paul Atkins, he wants all of our markets on chain. And, you know, once they're on chain, it will be hard to bring them, you know, take them off-chain again. And this is a revolutionary technology that we shouldn't be running away from or trying to stop. It's something that we need to embrace. And there's so much efficiency

Starting point is 00:26:14 and so much scale that can come from it that I think better understanding it, this gives people more of an opportunity to better understand it outside even financial services, but all the other use cases um and so i think it's going to be hard to go back to a prior technology once we've advanced what has now changed at binance that the cc settlement um and the um kind of pardon situation has uh happened is he going back to binance is binance changing anything about their business i don't know how much of that stuff you know but what's going on with binance he's not going back to Binance right now. And Binance still has all these restrictions on them from the DOJ and the CFTC and the FinCEN and the OFAC cases. It's crazy. Most companies have one or two

Starting point is 00:27:11 people come after them, one or two government agencies. They had five. No fraud, no nothing, but five. So but Binance still has, you know, like a monitor ship in place. So the Treasury has a monitor there through FinCEN to make sure that they comply with U.S. laws, even though they've been banished from the U.S. and they have no U.S. customers. And so they really shouldn't have to comply with U.S. law, but they have a monitor there still to make sure that they comply with U.S. law. And I think, you know, everybody is relieved and glad that CZ has, you know, his name has been kind of cleared of this. But, you know, there's still a lot of damage that was kind of done to Binance and to CZ both. But I think kind of the real, that it is very hard

Starting point is 00:28:08 there, I don't want to say the real loser, but a big loser in this is the US, right? So Binance still isn't here. And so we don't have the liquidity of the biggest crypto exchange in the world isn't here. And what does that mean? It means that one, like you need a lot of liquidity, you need deep liquidity as your markets grow and to grow, to be the biggest market, you need the most liquidity. Also, users who want choice, they want to have different choices among different types of tokens or different types of projects that they want to be a part of. And the projects that want to launch, you want to launch on the largest exchange and that's not here. So you still have people who want to launch outside the US so that they can launch on Binance. And then

Starting point is 00:28:57 competition. That makes us stronger. And that makes all of our market players stronger to compete globally. Makes sense to me. Teresa, I appreciate you coming on here. I know you didn't have to do this. You not only came on, but were willing to talk about anything and answer hard questions. And I think a lot of people in your position would frankly run and hide. They'd just be like, no, I'm good. I don't need to do this. And there's not much in it for you. But I do think these are serious questions that people have. And there's something about the beauty of the internet that allows individuals to just talk directly to the people and say, hey, here are the answers that people want to have. So I appreciate you taking the time to do it. Where

Starting point is 00:29:35 can we send people if they've got questions, want to reach out to you, or maybe other people need help? You are a lawyer. So where can we send people to find you on the internet? Yeah. Well, they can always find me on my Twitter. So my ex-account, sorry, I still call it Twitter, you know, uh, Teresa Goodygian. I post, uh, all my thought pieces there and everything too. Amazing. All right. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to do this. I learned something today. Hopefully everybody else did. We'll do it again in the future. Thank you so much.

The Pomp Podcast - CZ's Lawyer Reveals The Truth About Trump's Pardon | Teresa Goody Guillén

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