House Speaker Mike Johnson found himself tangled in his own rhetoric when confronted with President Donald Trump’s admission that he didn’t know the crypto billionaire he’d recently pardoned.
CNN’s Manu Raju pressed Johnson on Capitol Hill about the apparent contradiction between his past attacks on President Joe Biden’s use of clemency and Trump’s own on-air confession during his 60 Minutes interview Sunday.
“Last week, you came here to these mics and you were very critical of Joe Biden’s use of the auto pen. You said he didn’t even know who he was pardoning, but last night on 60 Minutes, President Trump admitted not knowing he pardoned a crypto billionaire who pleaded guilty to money laundering. Does that also concern you?” Raju asked Monday.
Johnson replied: “I don’t know anything about that. I didn’t see the interview. You have to ask the president about that. I’m not sure.”
The exchange came just days after Johnson had accused Biden of being unaware of who he was pardoning, describing the actions as “invalid on their face.” His comments followed a report released by the Republican-led House Oversight Committee that accused Biden’s aides of concealing signs of “mental decline” and alleged he may have authorized pardons without full awareness.
“It sounds like a terrible novel or something, but this is reality,” Johnson said at the time. “The pardons, for example—he pardoned categories of violent criminals and turned them loose on the streets, and he didn’t even know who. He didn’t even know what the categories were, apparently, much less the individual people, that he pardoned.”
But Trump’s 60 Minutes remarks have thrown Johnson’s outrage into sharp relief. When asked about his pardon of Binance founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, who pleaded guilty to federal money laundering charges, Trump told interviewer Norah O’Donnell, “I don’t know who he is.” Zhao’s violations allowed criminal groups to move money connected to drug trafficking and child abuse.
The Binance founder had previously admitted to allowing billions of dollars in illegal transactions to flow through the cryptocurrency exchange, resulting in one of the largest corporate penalties in U.S. history.
Johnson’s refusal to address Trump’s comments stood in contrast to his previous insistence that a president must personally understand and approve each pardon.
It comes after Johnson claimed to have not seen a rambling speech Trump made to military leaders last month. Rolling out the same excuse, the speaker told Democratic Rep. Madeleine Dean as she grilled him on the Hill, “I didn’t see it.”
Undeterred, Dean continued, saying, “It’s so dangerous! You know I serve on Foreign Affairs and Appropriations, it’s a collision of those two things. Our allies are looking elsewhere. Our enemies are laughing. You have a president who is unwell.”
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