Tick-Tock: Media reporting on First Brands, BDO, Apollo, and Deloitte
First a quick update on some crypto news. Then I dig into reporting on the roles of BDO, Apollo, and Deloitte in the First Brands saga and some controversy about reporting on BDO.
“The United States, almost alone today, offers the liberties and the privileges and the tools of freedom. In this land the citizens are still invited to write their plays and books, to paint their pictures, to meet for discussion, to dissent as well as to agree, to mount soapboxes in the public square, to enjoy education in all subjects without censorship, to hold court and judge one another, to compose music, to talk politics with their neighbors without wondering whether the secret police are listening, to exchange ideas as well as goods, to kid the government when it needs kidding, and to read real news of real events instead of phony news manufactured by a paid agent of the state. This is a fact and should give every person pause.” E.B. White, One Man’s Meat
“A free press is one where it’s ok to state the conclusion you’re led to by the evidence.” Bill Moyers
The WSJ reported on October 23, 2025, that “President Trump pardoned Changpeng Zhao, the convicted founder of crypto exchange Binance, following months of efforts by Zhao to boost the Trump family’s own crypto company.”
The president signed the pardon on Wednesday, people familiar with the matter said. Trump recently indicated to advisers that he was sympathetic to arguments of political persecution related to Zhao and others, one of the people said.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that Trump had “exercised his constitutional authority by issuing a pardon for Mr. Zhao, who was prosecuted by the Biden Administration in their war on cryptocurrency.” She added: “The Biden Administration’s war on crypto is over.”
Bruce Carton broke down the legal angle on his newsletter The Daily Update from Securities Docket:
The NYT reports that “to spearhead his clemency push, Mr. Zhao hired Teresa Goody Guillén, a former Securities and Exchange Commission lawyer….”
This pardon has been in play since at least March 2025. In March, the WSJ reported that representatives of President Trump’s family “have held talks to take a financial stake in the U.S. arm of crypto exchange Binance…. At the same time, Binance’s billionaire founder, Changpeng Zhao—who served four months in prison after pleading guilty to a related charge—has been pushing for the Trump administration to grant him a pardon….”
In May, CZ confirmed that he had applied for a pardon, but only after the article came out.
As technology researcher Molly White noted, lawyer Teresa Goody Guillén was hired by CZ to advocate for his pardon while she “simultaneously represented Trump’s World Liberty Financial.”
Goody Guillén’s name may be familiar. She is frequently quoted on crypto issues and was in the running to be SEC chair, according to Coindesk back in November.
I have to say she is really good at client relations as well as POTUS stroking!
I wrote about the possibility of a CZ pardon at Booth Review in September.
Trump, who in 2021 was a critic of Bitcoin, is now a crypto enthusiast with a personal stake in the industry. The president and his family have close ties to the digital-asset operation World Liberty Financial, which created a stablecoin that will be used—by the tech investment company MGX, overseen by the brother of the president of the United Arab Emirates—for a $2 billion investment in Binance, the biggest crypto exchange. Binance and its founder Changpeng Zhao in 2023 pleaded guilty to violating anti-money-laundering laws. Zhao is now seeking a pardon.
Stablecoins, Stollers, and shared auditors (again)
It’s live! My fall feature cover story for The University of Chicago Booth School of Business Review. So many sidebars!
And I spoke about it for the BBC, recorded in early September and aired on October 9.
In other digital asset news:
My comment:
Finally:
What’s funny is that when I see something on LinkedIn that I strongly disagree with, a take that I completely oppose, I look to the comments and almost always see that the people agreeing are not connected to me at all.
Makes sense.
On the other side of the paywall, I analyze the reporting around the First Brands alleged fraud and bankruptcy. In particular, I’ll dig into the reporting on the roles of the audit firm that signed the First Brands audit, BDO, and of Deloitte, which was engaged to do a “quality of earnings” review that was not completed before the company failed.
I also take a look at BDO’s complaints about reporting by GoingConcern.com.
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