Summary:
In what may be a first in American history, President Trump just expanded the presidential pardon power to include corporations.
Corporations are artificial legal fictions designed to maximize shareholder wealth. Nonetheless, they can theoretically commit crimes and be indicted for them. According to a 1999 memorandum from the Justice Department, the “important public benefits” of prosecuting corporations include “deterrence on a massive scale,” particularly for “crimes that carry with them a substantial risk of public harm,” such as “financial frauds.”
Such public benefits now fall prey to the whims of the president with his pardon of a cryptocurrency company that smacks of political corruption.
On Friday, Trump issued full and unconditional pardons to four individuals and a related cryptocurrency exchange, BitMEX.
BitMEX solicits and takes orders for trades in derivatives tied to the value of cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin. Last summer, BitMEX entered a guilty plea in a Manhattan federal court for violating the Bank Secrecy Act for having operated without a legitimate anti-money laundering program. Prior to August 2020, customers could register to trade with BitMEX anonymously, providing only verified email addresses. The latest in politics and policy. Direct to your inbox. Sign up for the Opinion newsletter
On Jan. 15, 2025, BitMEX was criminally fined $100 million in connection with its guilty plea, which was on top of $130 million in civil penalties previously imposed by the Commodities Futures Trading Commission. At sentencing, the judge noted that BitMEX, which is incorporated in the Seychelles, had claimed not to operate in the U.S. for several years even though U.S. customers comprised a large share of its business.
He makes a lot of history, none of it good.
I’m hoping he’ll make a tiny bit of good history when he beefs it.
Does this set a precedent for the President to pardon private mercenary companies?
Yes
And his own company that he definitely does not control or have an input on its day to day
OMG, for BitMEX of all things?? I expected at least a fossil fuel company of some sort.
It’s the exchange he used for Trump coin, and the one the Argentina president used for his scam coin.
Also Hawk Tuah coin.
These scams were all connected via the same digital wallets.
Easier to launder money and have illicit money activities through crypto than fossil fuels
If corporations can receive pardons, then corporations should be able to receive the death penalty.
Nope sorry, corporations can only be ‘people’ legally if it endows all of the benefits but none of the risks.
I’m told this is a cornerstone of capitalism.
Reminds me of this quote from Ambrose Bierce from the Devil’s Dictionary:
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.
- https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Devil’s_Dictionary/C
- https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ambrose_Bierce
There’s a lot of good ones in this book.
April Fools! Right? RIGHT? It’s an April Fools joke isn’t it?
Aww fuk.
I’m 100% sure that no money went to Trump and this is purely his goodwill.
Because Trump is definitely the guy that would support a foreign company that supposedly doesn’t operate in the USA
The grift is real, in plain sight - and the MAGAts still think he cares about them 🤣
They still think he’s going to hunt down and stop all the Democrat run baby sex trafficking pizza kitchens.
As he flies around in Epstein’s jet.
They think he already has, and the only thing keeping them from popping back up into existence is him sitting on the throne.
Oh my god, I had managed to completely forget about the pedophile pizzeria shit - tabarnak, there’s just too much crazy to keep track of.
The conspiracy theory was that child-molesters ran the government. To fix it, they elected child-molesters to run the government.
So Trump starts mining company for Bitcoin as they announced. Then once they have a decent amount they start investing all the gold from Fort Knox into Bitcoin as previously stated by the white House to inflate prices. Then uses the money for illegal bribes with anonymous accounts? Something like that I assume
More crypto scam horseshit
The longer this goes on, the more I think about Flying Squid, and think he was right to gtfo of dodge
Is that what happened?
I figured he’d still come back to post. Ive been afraid something worse happened.
He probably just swapping handles after getting too much recognition. Or hes that one guy who fled to canada lol
They don’t face any consequences anyway…so they’re being pardoned from the consequences they don’t actually face
So we just gifted them $100 million? Looks like DOGE should be firing Trump next.
Nah, its just a tax DOGE
Guess we know who will be running his grift programs from now on…
That’s how you KNOW Trump cares about the Working Class people! By PARDONING the ENTIRE CORPORATIONS that are LITERALLY killing People!
I mean, I didn’t think a crypto exchange LITERALLY killed anyone.
Is this another terrible consequence downwind of Citizens United?
Yes
The article argues against it, but technically pardoning a corporation makes sense. The corporation as an entity exists to allow people to take more risk and not have the consequences ruin them personally. This is literally what they teach you in business law.
So sure, it’s stupid and BitMEX is obviously guilty, but from a legal perspective, pardoning a corporation makes sense
