Senate Democrats demand hearings on $500 million UAE stake in Trump crypto venture

Five senior Senate Democrats have called on Republican committee chairs to hold immediate hearings on a reported $500 million investment by UAE-linked entities in World Liberty Financial, the cryptocurrency company tied to President Donald Trump and his family.

The letter, dated June 23, was signed by Senators Elizabeth Warren, Richard Blumenthal, Gary Peters, Dick Durbin, and Ron Wyden, each the ranking Democrat on a committee with jurisdiction over the matter.

What do the lawmakers allege?

The senators pointed to reporting by the Wall Street Journal that representatives of Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE’s national security advisor, agreed to buy a 49% ownership position in World Liberty Financial. Eric Trump signed the agreement four days before his father’s January 2025 inauguration.

$218 million was first paid out of the total purchase price, with the Trump family entities receiving $187 million. Companies connected to Steve Witkoff, who co-founded World Liberty Financial and later became the administration’s Middle East envoy, also reportedly received at least $31 million. Witkoff’s son Zach is the current CEO of World Liberty Financial.

In its Banking Committee press release, the senators described the arrangement as “something unprecedented in American politics: a foreign government official taking a major ownership stake in an incoming U.S. president’s company.”

Trump has stated that he was not aware of the investment and is not involved in the company’s daily operations.

Trump administration actions flagged by the lawmakers

The letter outlined several Trump administration actions that benefited the UAE in the months after the reported deal closed.

One of these actions is a $1.4 billion arms sale approved in May 2025. This came despite congressional concerns about weapons reaching armed groups in Sudan, where more than 150,000 people have died.

The Commerce Department also overturned Biden-era restrictions on AI chip exports, which opened the way for G42, a UAE artificial intelligence firm chaired by Sheikh Tahnoon, to receive 35,000 Nvidia Blackwell processors in a deal worth over $1 billion. 

U.S. intelligence officials had previously flagged that G42 provided American technology later used to improve Chinese missile capabilities.

Treasury also created a “Known Investor Pilot” program to speed up foreign investment approvals through the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), a fast-track mechanism the UAE had lobbied for.

“We are deeply concerned about this series of events, which raise questions about what more the UAE may receive, or may have already received, at the expense of U.S. national security after investing in the Trump family crypto company,” the lawmakers wrote.

Calls for inquiries into Trump family crypto profits

There has been a growing call for congressional inquiries into the Trump family’s cryptocurrency activities, and the latest release from the senators adds more pressure.

Warren and other Democrats asked Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in February to evaluate the $500 million deal to check if it warranted a national security review. 

On the House side, Rep. Ro Khanna also launched a separate investigation into the arrangement.

The Trump family has reported more than $1 billion in revenue from crypto ventures, including World Liberty Financial, a memecoin, and NFT collections. World Liberty Financial is also pursuing a federal banking charter.

In May, Warren separately asked the SEC to investigate if World Liberty Financial misled token buyers, citing a $75 million loan backed by $440 million in WLFI tokens at a time when ordinary investors were locked out of selling.

How will the Democrat probe affect the CLARITY Act?

The demand for a hearing arrives at a time when Republican lawmakers are working actively to see that the CLARITY Act, which would create the first comprehensive federal regulatory framework for digital assets, gets passed. 

Several Democratic lawmakers have refused to support the bill unless it includes ethics provisions addressing potential conflicts of interest tied to the president’s crypto holdings.

Republicans control the Senate and decide whether hearings take place. The lawmakers asked for sworn testimony from administration officials about “what they knew and when about payments to the families of the President and his lead diplomat for the region,” according to the Banking Committee release.

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