President Donald Trump once said crypto’s value was “based on thin air.” Two years later, he said Bitcoin “seems like a scam.” Then, the thin air started paying him.

Today, Trump is a convert with a family crypto company and a meme coin bearing his name. He is pushing the Senate to pass the CLARITY Act, whose ethics rules somehow leave room for both.

A meme coin is crypto built around a joke or celebrity, not a real product. Buyers bet that hype will push up its price. With $TRUMP, the product is the president. On Sept. 15, the Senate takes up the 600-page bill. Maryland’s senators, Chris Van Hollen and Angela Alsobrooks, have warned about a president using federal power to expand a family crypto empire and backed legislation to keep presidents and their families out of the banking business. They deserve credit for drawing that line.

As a Maryland legislator, I know ethics rules are rarely thrilling. But they should at least enforce one quaint idea: Ptublic office is not a profit center.

The bill says officials may not issue or sponsor crypto for pay while in office. But a coin using the president’s name before inauguration may keep doing so — minting and selling new coins — after he sells or puts in a blind trust whatever holdings the bill calls “direct.” That definition covers coins and certain large equity stakes, not Trump’s licensing agreement, which pays him when his name sells coins. A cynic might suspect Congress wrote the rule by tracing around Trump’s arrangements.

Trump is not leaving the pitch to lobbyists. He is the lobbyist. On Aug. 19, the Roosevelt Room looked like a family-business open house. Executives from two partners of World Liberty Financial — the Trump family’s crypto company — sat with Coinbase and Kraken chiefs, whose exchanges trade Trump-family coins, and the SEC and CFTC chairs. All that was missing was a merch table. Then Trump led the group into the Oval Office. “We’re going to show them a real office,” he said. “Their offices are nice, but this is nice.”

Trump’s disclosure showed more than $1.4 billion in crypto income last year, including $635 million from his meme coin. Senate staff followed the money. Strip away the corporate paperwork and the transaction is simple: Trump’s name sells the coins, and the proceeds end in a trust for Trump alone. On Aug. 14, five days before that Roosevelt Room gathering, a federal regulator gave conditional approval to a World Liberty affiliate to operate a national trust bank that would issue the family’s dollar-linked cryptocurrency. In plain English: The administration gave the president’s family business a federal permission slip.

Van Hollen responded that bank regulators should protect consumers and the financial system, “not enrich their bosses.” Alsobrooks warned that a president was now “chartering and overseeing his own bank” while fueling his family’s business. They were right. The CLARITY Act does not stop that arrangement. It writes around it.

And wouldn’t you know it: The ban covers officials and spouses but not their children. Trump’s sons run World Liberty. Congress might as well have added an exemption for presidential princelings raised in a gold-plated penthouse.

Under the bill, the only official who can enforce this rule against Trump is Attorney General Todd Blanche — his former defense lawyer in three criminal cases. This month, Blanche was asked whether he would run the Justice Department independently from Trump. He refused to say yes. That is not accountability. It is the client choosing his own referee.

Rejecting this bill does not mean leaving crypto unregulated. Congress can write clear market rules without turning the president’s side hustle into a protected species. The Senate should reject CLARITY and start over.

Maryland’s senators have already sounded the alarm. I applaud Van Hollen and Alsobrooks for their leadership, and I urge them to keep up the fight and vote no on Sept. 15. The Senate’s job is to regulate crypto, not guarantee Trump’s cut.

Del. Vaughn Stewart (vaughn.stewart@house.state.md.us) is a Democrat representing District 19 in Montgomery County.