The president's comments have revived scrutiny of his family's financial interest in the crypto industry and Trump's own repeated claims that former President Biden was not aware of whom he was pardoning at the end of his term.
In an interview with "60 Minutes" that aired Sunday, Trump insisted he did not know Zhao personally, in response to questions about his family's involvement with Binance and whether it amounted to corruption.
"OK, are you ready? I don't know who he is," Trump said when asked by correspondent Norah O'Donnell why he pardoned Zhao. "I know he got a four-month sentence or something like that. And I heard it was a Biden witch hunt."
"But this man was treated really badly by the Biden administration. And he was given a jail term. He's highly respected. He's a very successful guy," Trump added. "They sent him to jail, and they really set him up. That's my opinion. I was told about it."
Trump's comments about Zhao and the rationale for pardoning him raised red flags for Democrats, who were quick to point out that the president has spent months questioning the validity of Biden's pardons.
House Republicans last week called on the Justice Department to investigate Biden's pardons.
"Who's running the @WhiteHouse?" former Biden spokesperson Andrew Bates posted on the social platform X in response to Trump's pardon comments Monday.
Trump has claimed Biden's use of the autopen to sign off on numerous pardons at the end of his term showed Biden was not really in charge or aware of what he was doing.
Trump dug in on those claims during Sunday's interview, insisting his predecessor "didn't have a clue."
"He illegally used, as you know, a machine, the autopen, in order to give pardons to people," Trump said. "The only pardon he signed it looks like was his son, Hunter. … But everyone else, I think those pardons are all just, were just a waste of time."
Biden has asserted he was fully aware and in control of the pardons issued during his administration, and that the autopen was used to handle the volume of orders he signed.
Trump appears to have physically signed Zhao's pardon, based on the document uploaded by the Justice Department.
The louder criticism from Democrats and Trump critics in the wake of the Zhao pardon has been over what they view as brazen corruption.
Check out the full report at TheHill.com.
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