Khanna Proposes Crypto Ban for US Elected Officials

Representative Ro Khanna’s proposed cryptocurrency ban for elected officials emerges directly from his allegations of improper financial relationships between the Trump administration and Binance founder Changpeng Zhao. In multiple media appearances, Khanna characterized President Trump’s pardon of Zhao as “blatant corruption,” specifically pointing to what he described as financial entanglements between Zhao and Trump family cryptocurrency ventures. “You’ve got a foreign billionaire who was basically engaged in money laundering, having money go to Hamas, having money go to Iran, having money go to child abusers,” Khanna stated during his MSNBC interview, though his characterization contained significant factual inaccuracies regarding Zhao’s legal situation.

Khanna’s allegations center on his claim that Zhao was “basically financing Donald Trump’s cryptocurrency stablecoin” and had pledged support to World Liberty Finance, which Khanna described as the “president’s son’s cryptocurrency firm.” The California lawmaker asserted that these financial relationships were occurring “while Trump is president” and that participants were “making millions of dollars on” these ventures. Khanna framed these alleged connections as fundamentally corrupt, stating “It is so illegal. It is right in our faces,” and arguing they demonstrate why elected officials should be banned “from having cryptocurrency and accepting foreign money.”

While making his case for the cryptocurrency ban, Khanna presented several factually incorrect statements about Changpeng Zhao’s legal circumstances. The California representative incorrectly stated that Zhao “served four years in prison” when the former Binance executive was actually sentenced to only four months. Khanna also erroneously claimed Zhao “was convicted,” when in reality Zhao pleaded guilty to money laundering violations as part of a $4.3 billion settlement deal with the U.S. Department of Justice. These factual misstatements occurred during Khanna’s primary media appearances promoting the proposed legislation.

The $4.3 billion settlement between Binance and the U.S. Department of Justice represented one of the largest corporate penalties in financial history, but Khanna’s characterization of Zhao’s personal legal situation significantly overstated the severity of the consequences. Despite these inaccuracies, Khanna maintained that the situation demonstrated systemic corruption issues that necessitated legislative action. “I think that people think this is a tech issue. This is not a tech issue. This is a corruption issue,” Khanna emphasized during his Friday appearance on MSNBC’s The Briefing.

Khanna’s cryptocurrency ban proposal represents a natural extension of his earlier legislative efforts to restrict financial activities among elected officials. In 2023, he authored the Ban Congressional Stock Trading Act, a bipartisan ethics bill aimed at preventing members of Congress and their families from trading individual stocks while in office. That legislation would have required lawmakers and senior officials to divest from individual holdings or place their assets in qualified blind trusts, limiting investments to diversified funds or U.S. Treasury securities.

Although the 2023 stock trading ban ultimately stalled in committee and was never enacted, it helped shape ongoing bipartisan efforts to restrict lawmakers from trading stocks while in office. Khanna originally framed that proposal as a step toward restoring public trust by ensuring lawmakers cannot personally profit from policy decisions or privileged information—principles he now argues should extend to cryptocurrency ownership as well. The new cryptocurrency ban legislation appears to follow similar logic, treating digital assets as potentially creating the same types of conflicts of interest as traditional stock holdings.

Khanna’s press office did not immediately return requests for a copy of the draft legislation he plans to file, nor did the representative respond to direct requests for comment about his own trading activities. The lack of immediate details about the specific provisions of the proposed cryptocurrency ban leaves questions about how it would be implemented and whether it would include the same blind trust mechanisms as his earlier stock trading proposal.

Khanna’s call for bipartisan action to investigate what he describes as financial entanglements between the Trump family and Zhao places the cryptocurrency ban proposal squarely within broader political debates about ethics and financial influence. The California lawmaker has urged lawmakers across party lines to examine the relationships between political figures and cryptocurrency ventures, arguing that the situation represents a fundamental challenge to government integrity. “This is money that’s going into someone at the White House and the White House having official acts like pardons in exchange,” Khanna stated during his Friday media appearance.

The proposal emerges amid ongoing discussions about how to regulate the rapidly evolving cryptocurrency market while addressing concerns about its potential use for illicit finance. Khanna’s focus on the Binance case and the subsequent pardon highlights how high-profile cryptocurrency enforcement actions are becoming increasingly politicized. By connecting his cryptocurrency ban proposal directly to the Zhao pardon and alleged Trump family financial interests, Khanna has positioned the legislation as both an ethics measure and a political response to specific administration actions.