{"id":206749,"date":"2026-08-29T18:21:07","date_gmt":"2026-08-29T18:21:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/206749\/"},"modified":"2026-08-29T18:21:07","modified_gmt":"2026-08-29T18:21:07","slug":"the-senate-should-regulate-crypto-not-protect-trumps-side-hustle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/206749\/","title":{"rendered":"The Senate should regulate crypto \u2014 not protect Trump’s side hustle"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Donald Trump once said<\/a> crypto\u2019s value was \u201cbased on thin air.\u201d Two years later, he said Bitcoin \u201cseems like a scam<\/a>.\u201d Then, the thin air started paying him.<\/p>\n

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<\/a>, whose ethics rules somehow leave room for both.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s senators, Chris Van Hollen and Angela Alsobrooks, have warned about a president using federal power to expand a family crypto empire and backed legislation<\/a> to keep presidents and their families out of the banking business. They deserve credit for drawing that line.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The bill says officials may not issue or sponsor crypto for pay while in office. But a coin using the president\u2019s name before inauguration may keep doing so \u2014 minting and selling new coins \u2014 after he sells or puts in a blind trust whatever holdings the bill calls \u201cdirect.\u201d That definition covers coins and certain large equity stakes, not Trump\u2019s licensing agreement, which pays him when his name sells coins. A cynic might suspect Congress wrote the rule by tracing around Trump\u2019s arrangements.<\/p>\n

Trump is not leaving the pitch to lobbyists. He is the lobbyist. On Aug. 19<\/a>, the Roosevelt Room looked like a family-business open house. Executives from two partners of World Liberty Financial \u2014 the Trump family\u2019s crypto company \u2014 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. \u201cWe\u2019re going to show them a real office,\u201d he said<\/a>. \u201cTheir offices are nice, but this is nice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s disclosure<\/a> showed more than $1.4 billion in crypto income last year, including $635 million from his meme coin. Senate staff followed the money<\/a>. Strip away the corporate paperwork and the transaction is simple: Trump\u2019s 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<\/a> to a World Liberty affiliate to operate a national trust bank that would issue the family\u2019s dollar-linked cryptocurrency. In plain English: The administration gave the president\u2019s family business a federal permission slip.<\/p>\n

Van Hollen responded<\/a> that bank regulators should protect consumers and the financial system, \u201cnot enrich their bosses.\u201d Alsobrooks warned<\/a> that a president was now \u201cchartering and overseeing his own bank\u201d while fueling his family\u2019s business. They were right. The CLARITY Act does not stop that arrangement. It writes around it.<\/p>\n

And wouldn\u2019t you know it: The ban covers officials and spouses but not their children. Trump\u2019s sons run World Liberty. Congress might as well have added an exemption for presidential princelings raised in a gold-plated penthouse.<\/p>\n

Under the bill, the only official who can enforce this rule against Trump is Attorney General Todd Blanche \u2014 his former defense lawyer in three criminal cases. This month, Blanche was asked<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

Rejecting this bill does not mean leaving crypto unregulated. Congress can write clear market rules without turning the president\u2019s side hustle into a protected species. The Senate should reject CLARITY and start over.<\/p>\n

Maryland\u2019s 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\u2019s job is to regulate crypto, not guarantee Trump\u2019s cut.<\/p>\n

Del. Vaughn Stewart (vaughn.stewart@house.state.md.us<\/a>) is a Democrat representing District 19 in Montgomery County.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Donald Trump once said crypto\u2019s value was \u201cbased on thin air.\u201d Two years later, he said Bitcoin…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":206750,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2],"tags":[92565,11965,40182,8385,894,10,349,65,11,64,92564,74,44283,92563],"class_list":["post-206749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-donald-trump","tag-alsobrooks","tag-bill","tag-clarity-act","tag-crypto","tag-cryptocurrency","tag-potus","tag-president","tag-president-donald-trump","tag-president-of-the-united-states","tag-president-trump","tag-stewart","tag-trump","tag-van-hollen","tag-vaughn"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/117180188789897149","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/206750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}