A group of Senate Democrats, including Elizabeth Warren, Chris Murphy, Andy Kim, and Jeff Merkley, are pressing Republican leadership to hold formal hearings into a reported $500 million deal
A group of Senate Democrats, including Elizabeth Warren, Chris Murphy, Andy Kim, and Jeff Merkley, are pressing Republican leadership to hold formal hearings into a reported $500 million deal between Trump-linked crypto platform World Liberty Financial and investors tied to Abu Dhabi royalty.
The Wall Street Journal reported that an Abu Dhabi investment vehicle backed by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan secretly acquired a 49% stake in World Liberty Financial, the DeFi and stablecoin project that lists President Trump and his three sons as advisors, in an agreement signed by Eric Trump four days before his father's January 2025 presidential inauguration. Half of that $500 million stake was paid upfront, with $187 million going to Trump family-controlled entities and at least $31 million going to entities affiliated with the family of Steve Witkoff, the real estate mogul who co-founded World Liberty and was later named U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East.
Witkoff's son Zach is the current CEO of World Liberty. Ethics experts said the concept of a foreign government official secretly directing hundreds of millions of dollars to a company owned in part by the president has no known precedent and raises a host of ethical and national security concerns.
In a letter, the Democratic senators pressed Republican leadership to immediately hold hearings on President Donald Trump's purported ties to Abu Dhabi via his crypto company World Liberty Financial. Republicans currently control both the House and Senate, giving them sole authority to decide whether such hearings will take place.
The senators noted that within months of the deal, the Trump administration approved $1.4 billion in arms sales to the UAE, authorized the sale of 35,000 advanced AI chips to the UAE's G42 firm despite national security concerns, and took steps to loosen cryptocurrency regulations, including disbanding the Justice Department's National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team.
"Trump Administration officials must explain under oath what they knew and when about payments to the families of the President and his lead diplomat for the region," the lawmakers concluded.
Trump has said he was not aware of the $500 million investment and that he is not directly involved in World Liberty Financial's day-to-day operations. A spokesperson for World Liberty Financial insisted that "neither President Trump nor Steve Witkoff had any involvement whatsoever in this transaction" and that "any claim that this deal had anything to do with the Administration's actions on chips is 100% false."
Trump and his family have reportedly earned more than $1 billion from crypto-related ventures, including World Liberty Financial, which is also seeking a federal banking charter. Several Democratic lawmakers have said they will not support the bill unless it includes ethics provisions to address potential conflicts of interest.
Sources:U.S. Senate Banking Committee: Senate Democratic Leaders Call for Hearings on Foreign Crypto DealsThe Block: Senate Democrats Urge Republicans to Hold Hearings on Trump Family Crypto TiesCoinTelegraph: Democrats Urge Probe Into Trump Crypto Dealings With UAE
