A meeting last week among President Donald Trump, White House officials, and two Republican senators to discuss what may be the final obstacle to passing cryptocurrency legislation — an ethics provision to address Trump's vast crypto wealth — has become something of a black box.
On the afternoon of July 16, Trump, Republican Sens. Bernie Moreno and Cynthia Lummis, along with top White House crypto adviser Patrick Witt, met to discuss one of the final issues in passing that crypto bill, the Clarity Act. The bill would comprehensively regulate the industry for the first time at the federal level.
Negotiators from both parties have spent months discussing ethics provisions that would limit how presidents, vice presidents, members of Congress and other federal officials can profit from digital assets while in office. At the center of the issue has been Trump's memecoins and his family's company, World Liberty Financial. Last month, financial disclosures from Trump showed hundreds of millions of dollars related to WLF, intensifying the debate over potential ethics safeguards.
On Monday morning, one industry source indicated that Trump did not sign off on ethics language during Thursday's meeting.
