Watchdog: Here’s How House Republicans’ Crypto Bills Bolster Trump’s Business Empire While Putting American Interests At Risk

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Wednesday, July 16th, 2025
CONTACT: Jeremy Funk, press@accountable.us

WASHINGTON, DC – As part of “Crypto Week” announced by House Republicans, the U.S. House is expected to “jam through” industry-friendly cryptocurrency bills this week, including the CLARITY Act, a wide-ranging crypto market framework, and the GENIUS Act, a narrower Senate-passed framework for entities involved in dollar-pegged stablecoins. While recent polling has found that Americans support laws that prevent President Trump from personally benefitting from cryptocurrency, neither bill does anything to stop Trump or other elected officials from personally benefiting from crypto corruption. Key Democratic lawmakers have rightly warned that these industry-backed bills would “pave the way for massive crypto fraud and legitimize President Trump’s crypto corruption,” which had already netted him $1.2 billion from foreign buyers and conflicted entities that his administration regulates.

Now, a new analysis from government watchdog Accountable.US further examines how President Trump’s various crypto ventures could benefit from the CLARITY Act and GENIUS Act. Among the CLARITY Act’s key flaws, it would “significantly” narrow the crypto regulatory role of the SEC and would put the less robust Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) “at the center” of digital asset regulation.

Accountable.US found that this weakened oversight directly benefits the Trump family in several ways, including:

• Trump Media & Technology Group Corp., which has made a “fast and furious” move into Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, disclosed to the SEC that, “if Bitcoin is determined to constitute a security”—which it likely would not be under the CLARITY Act—it could “adversely affect” Bitcoin’s price and the price of Trump Media’s offerings.
  
  

• World Liberty Financial Inc. (WLFI) has disclosed to the SEC that its token sales to “‘non-US persons’” were not believed to be an issuance of securities subject to SEC oversight. In the same SEC filing, it disclosed President Trump as a WLFI “promoter,” but curiously claimed he was not actually a promoter for federal Securities Act purposes. Under the CLARITY Act, WLFI could enjoy lighter regulation by the CFTC as a digital commodities platform—or, it could be “subject to almost no federal oversight” as a decentralized finance (DeFi) platform run on automatic protocols, according to Wall Street watchdog Americans for Financial Reform.
  
  

• The CLARITY Act would likely shield Donald and Melania Trump’s meme coins, $TRUMP and $MELANIA, even further from SEC oversight. Just weeks after the Trumps’ meme coins launched, the Trump SEC claimed that meme coins are not subject to federal securities law, with one dissenting SEC commissioner calling the dubious new guidance “‘a roadmap for crypto enterprises looking to evade oversight by labeling themselves as a meme coin.’” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Ranking Member of the Senate Banking Committee, said the SEC was shortchanging average retail investors while helping “the President’s bottom line.” 

Additionally, the GENIUS Act would “‘create a superhighway for Donald Trump’s corruption’” by placing “light oversight” on Trump crypto venture World Liberty Financial Inc.’s (WLFI’s) “USD1” stablecoin, which has already been used in a suspicious $2 billion transaction and, according to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) could pose a risk of “‘market manipulation’” due to Trump’s newly outsized role in the stablecoin market.

“The so-called GENIUS and CLARITY Acts ironically do nothing to lift the cloak of mystery and unaccountability that shrouds the Trump family crypto interests around the world, leaving American interests at high risk,” said Accountable.US Executive Director Tony Carrk. “The President has already demonstrated he’ll seemingly take money from anyone, even possible criminal elements and foreign adversaries. So to pass a bill that lets Trump to enrich himself from deeper in the shadows is a recipe for American workers getting sold out to the highest bidder. The real clarity we have about this President is he fights to give his billionaire buddies a tax break and profit from his office while betraying the working Americans he claims to represent.” 

President Trump’s Ever-Expanding Crypto Ventures With Foreign Special Interests Cry for More Oversight and Accountability from Congress: For months, Accountable.US has continued to document how the sprawling Trump family crypto dealings open the floodgates for foreign and corporate influence while setting the stage for self-dealing and administration favors to wealthy special interests that could come at the expense of American working people and our national security. With the President announcing new deals seemingly every week rather than fully divesting from his crypto interests, a key question has gone unanswered: ‘Who won’t Trump take money from?’

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 Accountable.US is a nonpartisan watchdog group that exposes corruption across all levels of government.