'Nakedly corrupt self-enrichment': Alarm raised over new Trump scheme

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30 April

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 30, 2025.

A progressive watchdog organization on Wednesday urged key congressional committees to investigate U.S. President Donald Trump's involvement in a multimillion-dollar cryptocurrency deal that the group warned could open the door to corrupt and unlawful self-dealing.

In a letter to the top members of financial services and banking panels, Accountable.US president Caroline Ciccone called for a probe of a recent transaction between World Liberty Financial—the Trump family's crypto venture—and the Abu Dhabi-based crypto firm DWF Labs.

Ciccone argued that the deal, inked just before the Trump administration disbanded the Justice Department's crypto enforcement unit, "is emblematic of an unprecedented and rapidly worsening situation of the president of the United States using a web of Trump family crypto interests as his own personal mint while in office—interests that are largely out of public view and that almost certainly present conflicts against the public interest in many cases, including threats of foreign influence and to U.S. national security."

"These kinds of arrangements could allow for the Trump family to sell out the interests of the American people to the highest bidder, whether foreign or domestic," Ciccone warned. "This is a five-alarm fire for potential corruption that could leave everyday Americans worse off, and Congress should act accordingly."

Earlier this month, DWF Labs announced the purchase of $25 million worth of tokens issued by the Trump family's World Liberty Financial, a deal that the Abu Dhabi-based firm vaguely described as a "strategic private transaction." The firm also announced plans for a "strategic expansion to the United States with a new office in New York City."

The New York Timesreported Tuesday that in a matter of months, World Liberty Financial "has erased centuries-old presidential norms, eviscerating the boundary between private enterprise and government policy in a manner without precedent in modern American history."

"Mr. Trump is now not only a major crypto dealer; he is also the industry's top policymaker," the Times noted. "So far in his second term, Mr. Trump has leveraged his presidential powers in ways that have benefited the industry—and in some cases his own company—even though he had spent years deriding crypto as a haven for drug dealers and scammers."

Ethics concerns surrounding Trump's foray into the cryptocurrency industry intensified last week after the official website for the president's meme coin, $TRUMP, announced that the top 220 investors in the coin would be granted "an intimate private dinner" with the president next month at his private golf club in Virginia. The top 25 holders will get a "VIP White House tour."

The website includes an interactive leaderboard that shows the list of people or entities holding $TRUMP coins and the current value of those holdings.

"Have Dinner with President Trump and the $TRUMP Community! Let the President know how many $TRUMP coins YOU own!" declared the invitation, which led two Democratic senators to call for an ethics probe.

The dinner invitation for top holders sent the coin's price surging by more than 50% last week as traders rushed to purchase the token to potentially gain access to the president. The flurry of transactions netted insiders nearly $900,000 in trading fees over just two days, according toCNBC.

"Never in U.S. presidential history has there been a more nakedly corrupt self-enrichment scheme," Accountable.US executive director Tony Carrk said in a statement last week. "The president is openly inviting investors to have a bidding war over who can buy the most access to him while he laughs all the way to the bank."

"There has never been a clearer case of a president using their office to put money in their pocket, or greater potential for special interests to buy an administration's favor that could threaten the public interest," Carrk added. "Donald Trump is trampling over every historical ethical norm to see how much corruption he can get away with before his allies in Congress flinch."

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