Molly White's Citation Needed - The Senate must reject the Clarity Act’s ethics charade

Episode Date: September 15, 2026

The supposedly “unprecedented” ethics restrictions exempt Trump’s crypto businesses and leave enforcement to his loyalists. Originally published on September 14, 2026.

I'm Molly White, and you're listening to the audio feed for the Citation Needed Newsletter. You can see the text version of the newsletter online at citationneeded.news. The Senate must reject the Clarity Act's ethics charade. The supposedly unprecedented ethics restrictions exempt Trump's crypto businesses and leave enforcement to his loyalists. This issue was originally published on September 14, 26. The day before a closer vote scheduled for Tuesday, September 15, Senate Republicans have released a final draft of the Clarity Act cryptocurrency market structure bill, an industry-drafted attempt to deregulate the sector even further and strip away what little oversight existed. One of the biggest sticking points throughout negotiations has been an ethics regime, meant to rein in President Trump's personal crypto ventures, which brought in $1.4 billion last.

year alone. Senators should vote no on closure tomorrow. The supposedly unprecedented ethics restrictions tacked on at the last minute are riddled with loopholes to protect Trump's grift. Republicans tried and failed to pass off weak ethics language as a meaningful concession back in July, with laughable provisions including prohibitions on officeholders issuing tokens, with enforcement left only to a Department of Justice staffed by Trump appointed loyalists. Under that revision, any violations would have resulted in a fine capped at $500,000, less than 0.04% of Trump's crypto income last year. And the ethics language was set to expire upon Trump's exit from office in 29, preventing any future, less captured DOJ from prosecuting him.

After weeks of silence on subsequent ethics proposals, the White House indicated on September 14, the day before the scheduled vote, that they would agree to, quote, a significant portion of the newest ethics proposal. And while the new draft language blessed by the White House appears to address some of the Democrats' objections, they shouldn't be fooled by ethics language that appears tailor-made to allow the president to continue his grift. While the new draft removes the sunset provision and increases penalties beyond the $500,000 cap, it leaves clear paths for Trump to dodge any enforcement. in the first place. Republican negotiators claim the new draft gives state attorneys general a, quote, meaningful role in enforcement.

It does not. State attorneys general still can't bring enforcement actions against the president or other officials who violate the prohibitions. Under the new draft, they can only bring action against the attorney general to try to obtain injunctive relief. And if the Office of Government Ethics, led by Trump loyalist Keith Sondreling, decides the activity is not prohibitive, that's the end of the state AG's ability to intervene. Most enforcement falls to the Attorney General, currently Todd Blanche, a former personal lawyer to Trump. In April 2025, Blanche dismantled the Department of Justice's

National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team, directed the agency's market integrity and major frauds unit to, quote, cease cryptocurrency enforcement, and directed prosecutors not to charge various crimes in crypto cases. As for was prohibited, quote, covered individuals, including the president, will be barred from issuing or sponsoring digital assets, or, quote, maintaining a significant financial interest in cryptocurrency companies. While this sounds like it should apply to Trump's multitudinous crypto ventures,

the definitions are carefully drafted, almost as if to intentionally exclude the president's ventures. Corey Freyer, the Director of Investor Protection at the Consumer Federation of America, and former crypto advisor at the SEC during the Biden administration, wrote, quote, the way this section is written makes it clear that whoever wrote it knows Trump's crypto businesses inside and out, and they made sure Trump's crypto businesses would remain outside and not in. World Liberty Financial brought in over $800 million for businesses tied to Trump and his family last year via WLFI token sales, interest on the

USD1 stable coin reserves, and equity sales to the United Arab Emirates. Thanks to the president's web of shell companies, he owns a 69% stake in a shell company, which in turn holds a 38.25% stake in a holding company that holds the sole membership interest in World Liberty Financial. Though Trump and his family receives 75% of token revenues, the ownership structure means that this likely would not be considered a, quote, significant financial interest in the business under the Clarity Act's definitions. Most of that money, I should note, is already in the bank. Trump's crypto ventures were structured to front-load cash to Trump rather than generate recurring revenue, an ideal structure for someone concerned that future legislation, or a stronger Democratic wing of Congress,

could limit his ability to profit from private ventures while in office. The $500 million sale of World Liberty Financial Equity to the United Arab Emirates, for example, is done and dusted. Trump pocketed his share of the proceeds last year. The bulk of profits from new token launches also tend to come early, particularly with meme coins like Trump, which almost unilaterally crash precipitously after an initial mania. That's almost $1.2 billion of Trump's $1.4 billion right there. Token revenue in future financial disclosures was likely to be significantly lower regardless of any limits on his grift. So when Senator disposed of, quote, unprecedented limits on the president,

it's worth remembering that they can only contain the future damage. The biggest paydays are already in Trump's pocket and won't be clawed back under these supposedly historic provisions. The Clarity Act now also prohibits sponsorship agreements, quote, including any licensing, revenue sharing, transaction fee, or similar arrangement. But the provision applies specifically to crypto tokens, not crypto companies. And it requires that those agreements be explicitly in exchange for public endorsement. or naming licenses, allowing Trump and other officeholders to dodge the provision with careful

drafting. A later provision makes the carve out for Trump's ventures explicit. Sponsorship prohibition applies only to digital assets issued or sponsored, quote, after the effective date of this division, anywhere from two months to a year after the bill is passed. Trump's revenue-sharing agreement with World Liberty and his licensing agreement with the Trump meme coin are grandfathered in. That means. meme coin earned Trump more than $635 million last year, as investors lost billions. Yet another weakness of the Clarity Act's ethics provisions. They're narrowly scope to issuing crypto tokens and do not prohibit any of the wide universe of crypto-related activities beyond

token sales. Even if Trump establishes a new financial interest in a crypto company, it will remain permissible so long as a, quote, plurality of its revenue does not come from issuing crypto tokens. trading fees, crypto custody, lending and borrowing fees, crypto mining, and a whole slew of other crypto activities could make up the remaining revenue and put Trump in the clear. And even if these prohibitions applied to Trump's crypto businesses, they would still not stop him from profiting from crypto firms as he deregulates the sector. The only requirement under the current draft is that Trump move his investments into a, quote, qualifying blind trust, again, at a.

determined by the Trump loyalist-led OGEE. This would, of course, not erase Trump's memories of his former crypto businesses, and he could continue pushing through industry-written regulations that he knows would bolster his and his family's net worth. Senator Lummis is claiming that in this latest draft, quote, President Trump voluntarily agreed to unprecedented ethics restrictions, holding every federally elected official, judge, and their spouses to some of the toughest ethics restrictions.

in U.S. history. This echoes her attempts earlier this summer to sell the previous so-called compromise as a, quote, historic ethics agreement, a compromise that Democrats unanimously dismissed as a, quote, unsurious offer. The bill's proponents described the Clarity Act as providing clear rules of the road for digital assets, painting Democrats who oppose the bill as inexplicably standing in the way of clear guardrails for crypto. Quote, a no vote tomorrow kills the toughest ethics reform this country has ever put on the books, kills consumer protections for every American holding digital assets, and hands the future of this industry to our foreign competitors, threatened Senator Lomas on Twitter. But regulations were previously, if belatedly,

being enforced in the crypto sector by the SEC, which applied laws that cover a broad range of financial assets that fit the definition of an investment contract. Courts repeatedly upheld this application to the crypto sector, much to the chagrin of deep-pocketed crypto firms like Coinbase, ripple, and Gemini, who responded with hundreds of millions in lobbying and saw their cases dropped under Trump. Facing what they viewed as an existential threat from an SEC demanding they play by the same rules as other industries, the crypto sector spent hundreds of millions of dollars lobbying for the Clarity Act, and electing lawmakers who would let them write their own rules. The result is not clear rules of the

the road. Its industry drafted deregulation with a loophole-ridden ethics section bolted on only after Republicans realized that even the pro-crypto-democrats, installed with the help of $130 million in industry spending, would not sign off on a bill placing no limits on Trump's historic grift. Democrats considering a vote for closure should understand what they're endorsing. A bill that grandfather's in the crypto ventures that netted Trump $1.4 billion as invested. were ruined and leaves enforcement to Trump loyalists who have already dismantled crypto oversight and enabled some of the president's worst abuses. The crypto industry spent $130 million in 2024 installing lawmakers who would let them write

their own rules. They've poured hundreds of millions more into lobbying for the Clarity Act and installing even more pro-crypto members of Congress in the midterms. Republicans are trying to disguise this industry capture and deregulation as consumer protection, painting Democrats who oppose the bill as anti-innovation obstructionists. Democrats should not give them the bipartisan cover they seek. A vote for closure tomorrow by any senator, Democrat or Republican, is a vote to legitimize the most brazen self-dealing in presidential history and pave the road for yet more future abuses.

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