The leading Senate Democrat on a panel tasked with investigating corruption and mismanagement is scrutinizing U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent crypto activities and whether they’re part of a “pay-to-play scheme to provide access to the Presidency to the highest bidder.”
Richard Blumenthal, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations — a panel housed within the Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs — wrote letters to Bill Zanker of Fight Fight Fight LLC and Zach Witkoff, a co-founder of World Liberty Financial on Tuesday, asking them a series of questions about the ownership and investment structure for Trump-affiliated entities, including Fight Fight Fight LLC (the company behind the TRUMP memecoin), CIC Digital LLC (which issued Trump’s NFTs and co-owns Fight Fight Fight), Celebration Cards LLC (another entity affiliated with Trump’s NFTs) and DTTM Operations LLC (which manages Trump’s IP rights), as well as World Liberty Financial and its affiliated entities.
“The Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations is conducting a preliminary inquiry into potential conflicts of interest and violations of the law from President Trump’s cryptocurrency ventures … and associated businesses’ financial dealings with foreign nationals, foreign governments and other cryptocurrency firms,” the letters both said, with one pointing to World Liberty Financial and the other to the $TRUMP memecoin.
The letters went on to say that the businesses “may be enabling the violation of government ethics requirements,” before posing a number of questions for the companies’ respective executives.
These questions include asking how the companies identify or block investments from foreign governments, how much revenue they’ve generated and whether individuals facing prosecution or investigations can participate.
The letters also ask the executives to produce records tied to the Trump-affiliated crypto businesses.
Because Democrats are currently the minority party in the Senate, Blumenthal does not have subpoena power unless his Republican counterpart, Sen. Ron Johnson, also signs on. A spokesperson for Johnson did not immediately return a request for comment.
Democrats have sounded the alarm over Trump’s crypto businesses in recent days. Earlier Tuesday, Rep. Maxine Waters, who leads her party on the House Financial Services Committee, objected to a joint hearing with the House Agriculture Committee to address market structure legislation and instead hosted her own hearing focused on these crypto tie-ups.
A weekend statement from Sen. Ruben Gallego and a handful of other Democrats saying the lawmakers would not vote for the Senate’s stablecoin bill also seems to stem from Trump’s crypto ties — in particular the announcement by Eric Trump that Abu Dhabi-based investment firm MGX would use the Trump-affiliated USD1 stablecoin to close a $2 billion investment into Binance.
Sen. Chris Murphy also introduced a bill Tuesday which would ban the U.S. president and other senior government officials from issuing memecoins or other financial assets.