Molly Redden

How “Bitcoin Jesus” Avoided Prison, Thanks to One of the “Friends of Trump” Billionaire fugitive Roger Ver was facing federal criminal charges until he sought the services of a select club of President Donald Trump’s former personal attorneys who have easy access to top Justi...

Read the full story from me and Avi Asher-Schapiro here: www.propublica.org/article/bitc...

Christopher M. Kise's big signature

“Friends of Trump” are now in high demand for uber-wealthy people accused of white collar crimes.

One defense attorney said he would point clients to Ver’s deal—which Kise signed in giant letters—and say, “These are the guys who got this done.”

Ver had always maintained he never intended to dodge taxes and assessing Bitcoin for tax purposes is difficult. His lawyers argued the DOJ took his statements out of context. Ver admitted to “willful” misconduct in the final deal.

The DOJ responded that Ver “took full responsibility for his gross financial misconduct” and under Trump, no one can buy their way out of accountability. Kise, Ver, Blanche and the White House did not comment.

Kise even dictated that the final agreement could not use the word “fraud.”

The deal astonished tax experts. “I know of no cases like this,” said one.

A DOJ prosecutor says the deal crushed morale. “It stinks to high heaven.”

Ver's 85 meter yacht pictured on the water at twilight

After Kise’s intervention, DOJ took prison off the table. They abandoned the criminal charges.

They offered Ver a deal to go free if he paid $50m in taxes and fees–the same amount he allegedly owed 10+ years ago. Less than he recently paid for a luxury yacht.

Kise had helped bring Todd Blanche into Trump’s inner circle. Blanche is now the No. 2 at Justice.

Kise got to work lobbying Blanche and another former Trump family lawyer in DOJ leadership. They cut career prosecutors out of the loop and negotiated with Ver’s team directly.

How “Bitcoin Jesus” Avoided Prison, Thanks to One of the “Friends of Trump” Billionaire fugitive Roger Ver was facing federal criminal charges until he sought the services of a select club of President Donald Trump’s former personal attorneys who have easy access to top Justi...

But the DOJ under Trump has changed dramatically.

A small club of lawyers who are tight with the admin–prosecutors have nicknamed them “Friends of Trump”–have easy access to DOJ leadership.

Ver hired Chris Kise, Trump’s onetime personal attorney. www.propublica.org/article/bitc...

They believed the crypto world was rife with tax fraud and they wanted to make an example of Ver. They were ready to go to trial.

Prosecutors felt their case was airtight, per those familiar: Emails of Ver misleading his own lawyers about his assets. A speech in which Ver said that friends ask him how to use BTC to evade taxes.

Roger Ver, a white man with a crew cut, smiles with a new passport to Saint Kitts and Nevis, where he became a citizen

The billionaire, Roger Ver, is not hardcore MAGA. He’s a libertarian who renounced his US citizenship a decade ago on what he called “the happiest day of his life.”

When he left, he controlled about 1% of the world supply of Bitcoin. The DOJ claimed he dodged ~$50m in taxes.

A man's suit lapel with two pins on it. One is the DOJ seal, the other is in the shape of a thumbs-up and says "Trump" on it.

A billionaire known as “Bitcoin Jesus” was under indictment for massive criminal tax fraud and very likely going to prison.

Then, he hired a “Friend of Trump” and the criminal charges disappeared.

How did they do it? Avi Asher-Schapiro and I spent months getting the inside story.

She was able to obtain permission to view the execution, so she flew to Oklahoma City and woke up at 4am last Thursday to drive the two hours to the penitentiary in McAlester. She and others close to Wood then waited in a “gathering zone” in the predawn hours, where “very nice, friendly” staff from the Department of Corrections made small talk while offering them “chips and crackers and coffee.” They expected to be loaded into a van about an hour before the 10am execution, but nothing was happening. “I just kind of obsessively was refreshing my phone and trying to get in the mental headspace of ‘You’re here—you’ve got to do your job.’” Then, at 9:58, a message popped onto everyone’s phones: the governor had stopped the execution. Said Schulberg: “To experience that level of relief, and to see other people experiencing that level of relief—it was the most intense happiness I’ve ever felt in my life. I was like, this is ecstasy. Like, I’m never going to feel this happy again.” Schulberg’s decision to go to Oklahoma for the execution hadn’t come easily. Her brother and mother advised her not to. “You’re never going to be able to unsee this,” her brother told her. But when it was over, her brother said, “Your willingness to witness the worst thing ever meant that you got to see the most wonderful thing ever.”

In today's Laurels/Darts, I interview Jessica Schulberg, the Huffpost reporter who has extensively covered an unjust Oklahoma death-penalty case.

She was at the penitentiary when the the convict was spared -- exactly 2 minutes before he was scheduled to die.

www.cjr.org/laurels-and-...

You know one sign of sophisticated intelligence is the ability to integrate new information and not lose your job twice for essentially the same reason

Senior Editor, Business New York City, United States

JOB ALERT! We are hiring a business editor.

You have an unerring instinct for the jugular of the wealthy & powerful? Build a team with me and we’ll get after it!

job-boards.greenhouse.io/propublica/j...

You can email me or on Signal at 718-496-5233

BREAKING: In a 3-2 vote Oklahoma's Pardon and Parole board recommended clemency for Tremane Wood, a man sentenced to death for a killing his brother admitted to committing www.huffpost.com/entry/oklaho...

Tremane Wood is facing execution on November 13. I revisited his case to investigate how a group of judges and prosecutors have secretly coordinated in ways that have undermined Tremane’s final chance to live. www.huffpost.com/entry/oklaho...

These GOP Lawmakers Referred Constituents to the CFPB for Help. Then They Voted to Gut the Agency. Many of the same Republican lawmakers who have targeted the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for cuts have collectively directed thousands of constituents’ complaints about banks, credit cards, lo...

NEW from me: The CFPB's consumer complaint system is more popular than ever, fielding over 2.7M complaints last year.

But Republican lawmakers still voted to slash the CFPB's budget, even after referring thousands of their own constituents' issues to the agency.

www.propublica.org/article/cfpb...

Do you have information about Big Law spurning clients who might incur Trump's anger? Get in touch: molly.redden@propublica.org or on Signal at mollyredden.14

Trump’s War on Big Law Means It’s Harder to Challenge the Administration Some of America’s largest law firms are refusing to take pro bono and paid legal work from groups that seek to hold the government to account on issues like environmental protection, LGBTQ+ rights and...

…“People don’t want to stand up, and because of that, people are suffering.”

Read my story here: www.propublica.org/article/trum...

…with Trump ghosted a police accountability nonprofit in the middle of preparations for a major lawsuit
⚖️Wachtell and Kirkland — two of corporate law's biggest moneymakers — are conspicuously absent from pro bono matters they championed in the past

“It’s been a nightmare…

Some key examples:

⚖️Winston & Strawn turned down FBI agents trying to stop the DOJ from building a list of employees who worked on Jan 6
⚖️A firm that sounds a lot like Sidley Austin is refusing to represent the ABA against the Trump admin
⚖️One of the 9 firms that cut a deal…

Trump’s War on Big Law Means It’s Harder to Challenge the Administration Some of America’s largest law firms are refusing to take pro bono and paid legal work from groups that seek to hold the government to account on issues like environmental protection, LGBTQ+ rights and...

New from me: Big Law is fearful of representing anyone Trump sees as his enemies, and it's thwarting challenges to his agenda.

“There are cases that aren’t being brought at a time when civil rights abuses are maybe at the highest they’ve been.” www.propublica.org/article/trum...

‘Past The Point Of No Return’: Doctor Describes How Starvation In Gaza Is Driving Mass Death "In August and September, there are probably still going to be ... large numbers of deaths because children have already passed the tipping point," Mark Brauner, who volunteered in Gaza last month, to...

NEW— "A lot of children have passed the point of no return...The gut lining has started to auto-digest & will no longer [absorb] water or nutrition. Death is imminent for 1000s"

An American doctor who just returned from Gaza on where US-Israeli policy is taking us:
www.huffpost.com/entry/gaza-s...

Tips are *very* welcome.

Are you in Big Law or a Trump-aligned firm? Struggling to recruit pro bono partners to sue the administration? Former or current DOJ/OCR? Leonard Leo? Get in my DMs!

I'm launching a new @propublica.org beat! Legal affairs under Trump: his assault on Big Law, his judicial nominees, his defiance of the courts, the politicization of executive branch legal offices, favor-trading for dropped investigations, White House legal strategy—you name it.

Death, Sexual Violence and Human Trafficking: Fallout From U.S. Aid Withdrawal Hits the World’s Most Fragile Locations Exclusive State Department records show: As the Trump administration abandons its humanitarian commitments, diplomats are reporting that the cuts have led to violence and instability while undermining...

“I struggle for adjectives to adequately describe the horror that this administration has visited on the world,” said a former State Dept official about the damage done by Trump and Musk abandoning America's humanitarian aid commitments.

The “Invasion” Invention: The Far Right’s Long Legal Battle to Make Immigrants the Enemy The Trump administration is using the claim that immigrants have “invaded” the country to justify possibly suspending habeas corpus, part of the constitutional right to due process. A faction of the f...

“One of the reasons why we were very, so insistent about coming up with the whole notion of the border being an ‘invasion’ [is] there were Constitutional authorities that were a part of being able to call it an invasion.”

Read about how we got to this precipice:

www.propublica.org/article/trum...

Vought, Trump's budget chief and Project 2025 architect, said he was championing this theory specifically because it would “unlock” immense executive power.

In a private speech first revealed by @documented.net, ProPublica's @andykroll.bsky.social and me last year, Vought said…

Courts have never bought that unauthorized immigration truly equals an "invasion"—the threshold for using the Alien Enemies Act and suspending habeas.

But between Trump administrations, MAGA intellectuals Russ Vought and Ken Cuccinelli worked behind-the-scenes to legitimize this once-fringe theory.