Though President Donald Trump has long been a steadfast supporter of Israel and worked tirelessly to free hostages taken during the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks, he recently granted clemency to a cryptocurrency billionaire who headed a company that now stands accused of helping fund those responsible for the atrocities.

On Monday, families of Oct. 7 victims filed suit against Binance, the largest crypto platform in the world, as the New York Post reports, accusing the company and its Trump-pardoned founder and past CEO Changpeng Zhao of aiding the transfer of over $1 billion to terror groups who orchestrated the brutality two years ago.

Lawsuit filed

The complaint was filed in federal court in Fargo, North Dakota, on behalf of 306 plaintiffs as well as their loved ones who were kidnapped, injured, or killed on Oct. 7 or in the immediate aftermath of that fateful day.

The suit names Binance itself as well as senior company executive Gunagying “Heina” Chen, and it follows prior Justice Department enforcement actions against the company, which encompassed an admission of involvement in money laundering, billions in financial fines, and a four-month prison term for Zhao.

However, the new lawsuit asserts that the company was involved in far more egregious conduct than even the DOJ revealed.

According to the complaint, the company “knowingly sent and received the equivalent of more than $1 billion to and from accounts and wallets controlled by the [terror organizations] responsible for the October 7 attacks.”

Among the groups cited as having received those transfers and playing roles in the horrors of Oct. 7 were Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, with the plaintiffs’ lawyers declaring, “To this day, there is no indication that Binance has meaningfully altered its core business model,” adding that the platform “was intentionally designed as a criminal enterprise to facilitate money laundering on a global scale.”

Pardon stirs debate

In October, Trump pardoned Zhao, a move that spurred significant controversy and criticism due to the involvement of the president’s own family in the cryptocurrency business and the reported assistance a Trump-linked firm received from Binance in launching its operations, as CBS News reports.

On the 21st of October, Trump signed a “full and unconditional pardon” for Zhao, and when news of the clemency grant made its way into the press, the president appeared to disclaim personal knowledge of the former Binance CEO.

“A lot of people say that he wasn’t guilty of anything,” Trump said when questioned by a reporter about the pardon, adding, “... was somebody that as I was told, I don’t know him. I don’t believe I’ve ever met him, but I’ve been told by -- a lot of support, he had a lot of support, and they said that what he did is not even a crime.”

Trump further stated that Zhao’s conduct “wasn’t a crime [and] that he was persecuted by the Biden administration and so I gave him a pardon at the request of a lot of very good people.”

Though Zhao’s pardon received harsh criticism and allegations of corruption from Democrats, particularly those on the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt defended the move, observing, “This was an overly prosecuted case by the Biden administration,” and stating that Trump “wants to correct this overreach of the Biden administration’s misjustice and he exercised his constitutional authority to do so.”

Legal battle begins

Regardless of the Trump administration’s stance on Binance or its leaders -- past or present -- the newly filed lawsuit hopes to expose the extent of what plaintiffs describe as the company’s apparent disinterest in thwarting money laundering via its platform.

According to the complaint, the victims’ families are pursuing compensatory damages as well as treble damages potentially available to those subjected to acts of terror, but whether their claims are ultimately successful, only time will tell.