WASHINGTON — Advocacy groups are pressuring two ambitious Democratic senators to back provisions cracking down on President Donald Trump’s involvement with the cryptocurrency industry.
Sens. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) and Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) are now in a bind between an industry that helped elect them and Democrats’ message on presidential self-dealing.
The Senate is set to advance long-anticipated legislation that would grant the crypto industry the soft regulation it’s been lobbying for, but it can’t pass without support from a handful of Democrats. Schiff and Galllego, who have both progressive credentials and benefited from millions of dollars’ worth of ads from industry-backed super PACs in 2024, are key swing votes.
The progressive groups pressed Gallego and Schiff to withhold support from the new bill unless it bans the president from participating in crypto businesses, as Trump has done during his second term.
“Senators cannot accept legislation that falls short of prohibiting all elected and appointed public officials to high office and their families, including the President and Vice President, from promoting, issuing, or sponsoring crypto products and services, directly or indirectly,” Americans for Financial Reform, Demand Progress Action, Indivisible and Public Citizen said in a letter on Friday, which has not been previously reported.
