Zach Witkoff, one of many co-founders of the Donald Trump family-backed crypto platform World Liberty Financial (WLFI), has rebuffed efforts by US lawmakers to research the president’s potential conflicts of curiosity.
In a Could 15 letter to Senator Richard Blumenthal, attorneys for World Liberty Financial claimed a name to research the crypto platform was based mostly on “essentially flawed premises and inaccuracies.” Witkoff didn’t particularly handle any allegations, claiming that WLFI was “too busy constructing” for oversight.
“The Firm rejects the false selection between innovation and oversight,” mentioned the letter. “What it opposes is the misuses of regulatory authority and uncertainty to suppress lawful innovation.”
Blumenthal, the rating member of the US Senate Everlasting Subcommittee on Investigations, was considered one of many Democrats calling for investigations and legislative changes in response to Trump’s ties to WLFI, in addition to his TRUMP memecoin and its dinner scheduled for the highest tokenholders on Could 22.
The GENIUS Act, a invoice to acknowledge stablecoins as cost devices at the moment being thought-about in Congress, may be a bellwether for a way lawmakers intend to deal with the president’s potential conflicts of curiosity.
Stablecoin invoice debate continues in Republican-controlled Congress
One in all Blumenthal’s and plenty of US lawmakers’ concerns about Trump’s connection to WLFI is the USD1 stablecoin, which the platform launched in March. An Abu Dhabi-based funding agency introduced in Could that it could use the stablecoin to settle a $2-billion funding in Binance, a crypto trade that had beforehand been the goal of an investigation by US authorities.
“WLFI’s monetary entanglements with the President, his household, and the Trump Administration current unprecedented conflicts of curiosity and nationwide safety dangers, together with potential violations of the overseas emoluments clause,” Blumenthal wrote in a Could 6 letter to Witkoff.
Associated: What are the next steps for the US stablecoin bill?
Some Democrats have called for clarification inside the GENIUS Act to make sure that Trump was not in a position to personally revenue from stablecoins whose laws he could have influenced after which have the chance to signal into regulation. Nonetheless, as of Could 16, it was unclear whether or not any future vote on the invoice would handle these concerns. Cointelegraph reached out to Sen. Blumenthal’s workplace for remark however had not obtained a response on the time of publication.
Journal: Trump’s crypto ventures raise conflict of interest, insider trading questions