Democrat Ro Khanna Pushes to Ban Politicians From Trading Crypto After CZ Pardon
Rep Ro Khanna (D-Calif) put in a call to introduce a new bill on Monday that would prevent elected officials from owning or starting...
Quick overview
- Rep Ro Khanna has introduced a bill to prevent elected officials from owning or starting their own cryptocurrencies, citing concerns over corruption and conflicts of interest.
- Khanna's proposal follows the controversial pardon of Binance founder Changpeng Zhao by President Trump, which he claims was linked to financial support for the President's son's cryptocurrency firm.
- The bill aims to ban lawmakers from accepting crypto-linked donations and enforce federal ethics rules regarding digital assets.
- Khanna's efforts are part of a broader push for ethics reform in Congress, including his previous proposal to limit stock trading by lawmakers.
Rep Ro Khanna (D-Calif) put in a call to introduce a new bill on Monday that would prevent elected officials from owning or starting their own cryptocurrencies – and let’s be honest, he’s got a bone to pick. He’s getting at corruption and the potential for conflicts of interest here, and he’s done it in response to that pretty shady pardon of Binance founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao from President Donald Trump. Khanna is calling the whole thing “blatant corruption”, and he’s visibly upset about it.
In a sit-down with MSNBC’s Morning Joe, which was later uploaded to his YouTube channel, Khanna went after Zhao, accusing him of using his global crypto pull to fund some pretty unsavory stuff. “You’ve got some foreign billionaire who was basically washing money, sending it off to Hamas and Iran, and child abusers… that’s his MO,” he said, his frustration palpable.
Khanna went on to say he reckoned Trump’s pardon of Zhao was linked to Zhao’s financial support of a little project called World Liberty Finance – which Khanna described as “the President’s son’s cryptocurrency firm” – He’s arguing that US Officials should be blocked from owning digital assets and also can’t take money from crypto links from overseas, if we let this kind of financial entanglement happen. We’re undermining the whole point of being a democracy.
📈 Democrat Seeks Crypto Trading Ban for Politicians Following Binance Founder’s Pardon. Democrat Ro Khanna called Trump’s pardon of Binance founder Zhao “blatant corruption” as he pushes to ban politicians from trading crypto.
— Crypto News 📰 (@btc_af) October 28, 2025
Some of the important points from his proposal:
- Bans on Lawmakers owning or creating their own cryptocurrencies.
- Rules stopping lawmakers from accepting crypto-linked donations.
- Federal ethics rules to crack down on digital assets.
The Pardon That Got Everybody Talking
Zhao – Binance’s founder – actually copped to laundering money last year in a $4.3 billion deal with the US Department of Justice. He copped to it and then got sent to prison for four months, but not for four years, like Khanna got wrong.
Khanna said that Trump’s pardoning of Zhao was a straight-up exchange for cash and political influence. He was saying that the administration was basically giving favors to people who backed Trump through crypto-linked ventures—and that blurs the line in a really bad way between public service and making a profit on the side.
On MSNBC’s The Briefing, Khanna went deeper into this, saying it’s not really a high-tech issue; it is corruption, pure and simple. “There’s money flowing from billionaires into the White House, then suddenly we see pardons get handed out… that’s the corruption we need to tackle here.”
Looking to Take it Further on Ethics Reform
This crypto ban is part of his push to pass the Congressional Stock Trading Act, which he proposed in 2023 and sought to keep members of Congress from trading individual stocks. That bill, which did get bipartisan backing, still hasn’t gone anywhere—but it said that members of Congress and their families had to either sell their individual shares or put them in a blind trust, then limit their investments to diversified funds or US Treasury securities.
Now he’s trying to take those same restrictions and apply them to crypto – and he thinks that if public trust is going to depend on officials not making money from the policies they create, then we need to get this right.
With crypto’s influence in politics garnering bipartisan concern, it looks like Khanna’s push might be just what it takes to get people talking in Washington, especially about transparency and national security in the world of digital assets.
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