A lawyer for the founder of a leading exchange responds to the amnesty controversy: treated as a 'scapegoat'.

Source: BTCHaber Original Title: CZ's lawyer spoke: “They made him the scapegoat” Original Link:

Lawyer Defends Founders

Terresa Goody, the lawyer of Changpeng Zhao (CZ), the founder of a major exchange, made some notable comments on a podcast.

When asked if CZ would receive a pardon from US President Trump, lawyer Goody stated: “CZ is actually accused of a certain major exchange failing to implement and maintain anti-money laundering and compliance programs. Frankly, this is a regulatory violation. This is a compliance issue. There is no money laundering issue.” She added: “The problem here is simply that a certain major exchange failed to implement an anti-money laundering program.”

“CZ should not be on trial”

The lawyer emphasized that CZ should not have been prosecuted in the first place. She explained: “He was pardoned because he should not have been prosecuted from the very beginning. The president himself even stated when pardoning him that he did not believe he had committed any crimes and should not have been prosecuted. So he was essentially pardoned for the sake of justice, to achieve justice.”

Goody also argued that CZ is “the only person who has been prosecuted, defrauded, and victimized due to this specific accusation or similar nature of accusations, and has no criminal record.”

Being used as a “scapegoat”

When asked why CZ is treated differently, Goody stated: “I think this is part of the war against cryptocurrency. This process just happens to occur after the FTX collapse.” She continued: “I think he needs to become the target of this war against cryptocurrency. They need to prosecute someone, they really need a 'scapegoat,' and unfortunately, that person and institution are a leading exchange and CZ.”

Relationship with World Liberty Financial

One of the most controversial issues after the pardon is whether there is a “money for pardon” relationship between CZ and the president. It is well known that the decentralized finance project World Liberty Financial is managed by the president's son.

However, CZ's lawyer claims that “there is no evidence” to support this statement: “People keep referring to World Liberty as Trump's company. But I haven't seen anything that proves this is true. I've seen some reports about entities related to Trump holding minority stakes, but I haven't seen any specific evidence that this is Trump's direct company.”

Allegations Regarding Stablecoins

Goody responded to the “implicit payment” allegations based on the USD1 stablecoin on a certain leading exchange network: “Many of these are unreasonable accusations. For example, the stablecoin USDC1 issued by World Liberty on a certain leading exchange network. This is public, transparent, and publicly available information. Many people do this. Just because I posted an ad on Craigslist does not mean I have a special relationship with the former CEO of that site.”

The lawyer argued that people make these assumptions without understanding the basic knowledge of blockchain: “People do not understand how it works, nor do they understand the basic knowledge of how blockchain operates. They do not know how stablecoins work, nor do they know what the business model is.”

She further explained: “It's like saying: you buy wheat from me and pay me in Swiss francs, then I invest the Swiss francs and provide 'money for privileges' to Swiss politicians. Does this make sense? It's saying the same thing here.”

CZ's Future

Goody stated that CZ will not return to a certain leading exchange and pointed out the ongoing restrictions from U.S. regulators: “A certain leading exchange is still under restrictions arising from lawsuits by the Department of Justice (DOJ), the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), FinCEN, and OFAC. This is truly insane. Most companies deal with at most one or two agencies. They are facing five different agencies at the same time: no fraud, no other crimes, but five different agencies.”