Ending Presidential Corruption in Banking Act

Mr. President, tomorrow, the Senate will vote on a crypto bill that poses massive risks to our families, to our national security, and to our economy. And if that is not bad enough, while Americans across this country suffer from an affordability crisis, this bill will turbocharge President Donald Trump's ability to rake in billions and billions of dollars from crypto.

Late last night, we got the details of President Trump and the Republicans' final offer on ethics on this bill, and it reads exactly like what you would expect the most corrupt President in our history to bless: a weak fig leaf that will do nothing to stop him from making his next $1.4 billion in crypto profits.

First, it makes sure that the law could never be enforced against Donald Trump because it gives his political appointees the power to turn off enforcement of all of these ethics provisions.

Second, it contains major loopholes designed to allow President Trump to keep earning billions of dollars from his crypto business, including World Liberty Financial and his new bank. Yeah, you heard that right.

On August 14, World Liberty Trust Company received preliminary approval for a Federal banking charter. Donald Trump and his family own 38.25 percent of the bank. An investment fund backed by the UAE's National Security Advisor and brother of the UAE's President reportedly owns 49 percent of the bank. The bank charter was conditionally granted by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, a Federal banking Agency controlled by--wait for it--Donald Trump.

Donald Trump is now the first President in American history to own and oversee his very own bank. It may be the most brazen act of self- dealing that our financial system has ever seen. The bank can serve as the financial hub of the President's web of corruption. With a bank charter, World Liberty will be able to operate nationwide, offer families and businesses financial products and services, and enjoy the credibility that comes with having the Federal Government's stamp of approval.

The bank's primary product is the USD1 stablecoin, which is currently issued by a third party bank partner under a licensing agreement with World Liberty. The stablecoin arrangement earned President Trump $200 million last year. You know, that is a big chunk of the $1.4 billion that he earned from his various crypto ventures just in 2025 alone.

USD1 is already the fifth largest stablecoin in the entire world, and now, with the Federal banking charter, World Liberty can issue the stablecoin directly without a separately regulated bank partner. The charter could supercharge the growth of USD1, increase its interconnectedness with the U.S. financial system, and, as a result, drive even greater profits for President Trump and his family.

Donald Trump's bank is a new vehicle for billionaires, corporations, and

foreign countries to bribe him. These entities could cut Trump into everyday transactions and business deals by making payments using USD1 instead of, you know, traditional checks or debit cards or wire transfers. Trump could charge transaction fees, similar to Visa and MasterCard, and generate interest on the cash deposited with World Liberty in exchange for the USD1 stablecoin, similar to the business model of a traditional bank.

Look, this is not hypothetical. We already saw this play out last year in a trial run before World Liberty actually got its bank charter. MGX, which is a UAE state-owned investment fund, made a $2 billion investment in the crypto exchange Binance. Instead of using fiat currency--ordinary money like the U.S. dollar--to purchase stock in Binance, MGX paid Binance using USD1, cutting Trump in on the deal.

Coincidentally, President Trump pardoned the founder of Binance, who had pleaded guilty to failing to maintain an effective anti-money laundering program. Trump has also provided an array of foreign policy favors to the UAE, including giving the UAE a special exemption from U.S. export controls and approving the sales of advanced AI chips to UAE companies despite repeated warnings from our own national security officials that the technology could be diverted to China. So now, with Trump's Federal bank charter, we could just see more of the same thing.

Even setting aside the clear conflict of interest and the corruption, World Liberty's charter application would have been flatly denied under any previous administration, Republican or Democrat, due to its national security risks, anti-money laundering vulnerabilities, and lack of competent management.

So consider this: A foreign intelligence official backed a minority investment in the entity behind Trump's bank. Companies affiliated with the bank--Trump's bank--reportedly sold millions of dollars' worth of tokens to buyers that conducted business with North Korean state- sponsored hackers, with sanctioned Russian money laundering entities, and with other illicit actors; partnered with a venture whose main project was led by individuals sanctioned by the U.S. Government; and accepted $100 million from a businessman reportedly under investigation for money laundering by the United Kingdom. That is who Trump is in bed with in order to do this banking deal.

Most of the executives in charge of Trump's bank have little or no experience in banking. The bank's founder and proposed president, Zachary Witkoff, also happens to be the son of President Trump's Middle East Envoy Steve Witkoff, and he has never worked before in a senior banking role.

One of the bank's board members was the chairman and CEO of an accounting company that was subject to multiple SEC and PCAOB enforcement actions, including for ``systematic quality control failures and violations of audit standards.''

In other words, there is one person here who has some experience, and that is the person who has already been called out for systematic quality control failures and violations of audit standards.

Then there is the chief compliance officer of Trump's bank, who previously served as the chief compliance officer of a large crypto platform that blew up in 2022 called Voyager Digital. The platform faced multiple enforcement actions from State and Federal regulators for compliance failures, including luring customers to store their money on the platform by falsely claiming that the money would be FDIC insured.

So that is who Donald Trump has pulled together. But Donald Trump owns the bank, and he controls the Federal banking Agency that is responsible for approving the charter of that bank, and the application miraculously was approved.

Now it is on to Congress to step in and terminate this corrupt bank charter, and that is exactly what the Ending Presidential Corruption in Banking Act would do. The bill would prohibit Federal banking Agencies from approving various types of banking applications when the applicant is owned or controlled by a range of senior government officials. It would also require the termination of any such charters or applications that have been granted since January 20, 2025, which includes World Liberty's national bank charter.

Look, this is just common sense. It is the least that Congress could do to start unwinding President Trump's web of corruption.

Now, unfortunately, my Republican colleagues want to move in exactly the opposite direction. They seem intent on furthering President Trump's corruption. Look no further than the Senate's first order of business after the August recess. Here we are. We have been away for weeks. We come back, and what do the Republicans in the Senate put on the floor for us to work on? Is it a bill to make life more affordable for American families? No, not that. Is it a bill to end Donald Trump's dangerous war in Iran? Oh, not that. Is it a bill that would juice the value of President Trump's crypto empire and reward the crypto billionaires who have facilitated his corruption? Bing, bing, bing-- that is what the Republicans put on the floor. As if the latest glaring loopholes in the ethics provision weren't enough, it doesn't even apply to Donald Trump's new bank.

So here is the deal: Instead of further enriching the President, maybe Congress should curb this corruption--just clean up a little bit here--and let's start by passing my bill, the Ending Presidential Corruption in Banking Act. Let's make sure that we do not pass a crypto bill that will let Donald Trump continue to rake in billions of dollars in crypto profits while working families across this country struggle to deal with higher prices and an economy that gets worse by the day.

Mr. President, as if in legislative session and notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 5389, introduced earlier today; that the bill be considered read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I just know there were some words I didn't hear in the objection. I never heard anything about the $1.4 billion in profits that Donald Trump made in his first year of crypto activities, and I never heard any words about the fact that Donald Trump now is the first person in American history to both regulate the bank and own his own bank. I didn't hear anything about that, and that is what this bill is all about.

It is about the corruption and the opportunity for Donald Trump to be able to run his own bank; to do it with partners who are, at best, shall we say, ethically compromised; and to be able to invite in whoever wants to come and leave whatever kinds of wealth behind for Donald Trump to be able to gobble up.

You know, I understand it is hard to stand up to a man like Donald Trump, but at some point, the folks in this Congress over on the Republican side are going to have to grow a backbone. The American people know corruption when they see it, and this is corruption. What Donald Trump is doing with cryptocoins and now with his own bank to be able to supercharge his crypto wealth and to do it at a time when the people who followed Donald Trump lost $4 billion in their Donald Trump investments--this is a President who is all about enriching himself and not about serving the American people.

The least we could do--the least we could do--in the U.S. Senate is say: The guy who is in charge of the regulations, who runs the whole country--he tells us how powerful he is--and the guy who can actually say to the bank regulators--and does--``back off or move forward'' should not have his own bank to enrich himself and to pump up his crypto ownings.

I get it--the Senator is here to object--but what she doesn't talk about is the Trump corruption that is on the front page of every paper that is talked about and in news stories. People see it; it is documented; and the American people, I think, are just damned sick of it.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I am here, thinking about all the Americans who are working on manufacturing plant assembly lines, of all the Americans who are teaching our kids in school or who are patrolling our streets as police or who are working in our hospitals--all of the hard-working Americans who are just working to get by, to make ends meet, to know whether they can afford another $20 or $30 at the supermarket.

Then to think of Donald Trump's making $6 million per day last year-- a total of $2.2 billion just in the first year of his Presidency--I don't think there is a single person in America who thinks that he earned that money. And how could he? He is supposed to be devoting every waking moment to the public interest of the United States--to keeping us safe and our Nation secure.

The fact is that it was the result of corruption as $1.4 billion of it came from crypto. The point of this legislation is, essentially, to end that corruption. We will vote tomorrow on a crypto bill that is, sadly and tragically, riddled with loopholes that enable him to continue this same self-dealing and self-enrichment.

The failure to stand up to the President, I think, is going to be on our Republican colleagues because this amendment--ethics requirements for digital assets--is a sham; it is a charade. If nothing else, Republicans should take a stand and say: In crypto legislation that is supposed to stop wrongdoing, lawlessness, and the funding of terrorist organizations and money laundering, now is the time to also impose a strong conflict-of-interest rule--the Ending Presidential Corruption in Banking Act.

Think of it for a moment, the Ending Presidential Corruption in Banking Act, it bans the President and the Vice President and their immediate families from owning or controlling banks.

When I came to the U.S. Senate, if you had told me I would be supporting an Ending Presidential Corruption in Banking Act because it would be necessary to stop corruption and because the President would be twisting and ignoring and bending norms and precedents of the Presidency, I would have said: That would never happen in the United States of America.

But President Trump has been clear: There is no ethical line separating his role as President from his family's businesses. It is that simple.

Corruption has become the family business.

After President Trump issued an Executive order to assert control over the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, his control over that body--which approves bank charters--surprise, Trump's crypto company, World Liberty Financial, applied for a bank charter.

And, no surprise, on August 14, 2026, World Liberty Financial was granted conditional approval for a national bank charter.

Corruption has consequences. It has costs. That bank charter is worth millions--maybe hundreds of millions--to World Liberty Financial, but it will enable World Liberty Financial to exploit and take advantage of consumers that will cost them money out of those hard-earned wages that they make.

In fact, Donald Trump made $1.4 billion, including 636 million from his meme coin, but nearly a million Americans lost billions of dollars--more than $3 billion--while he was making his huge profits.

Corruption has consequences. It has costs. When the President of the United States is dealing with the Emiratis, who have bought a 49- percent share for billions of dollars in one of his enterprises, and then the Emiratis receive approval for the purchase of chips that have been refused them or defense equipment that is hugely valuable to them, it threatens our national security.

And when the President's son or his family go around the world establishing resorts, making deals, there is always a quid pro quo. There is always a quid to the quo. There is no free lunch. Our security is compromised. There are costs to our taxpayers.

And that plane that was supposedly a gift is already costing us hundreds of millions of dollars, not to mention our being beholden to the Qatar Government. There is no free lunch.

After Donald Trump, Jr., became a partner of the venture capital firm 1789 Capital, its assets ballooned to $3 billion as its portfolio companies rapidly received lucrative government contracts.

Those government contracts impact the taxpayers when they are sole source, when they are granted without proper review and scrutiny and oversight of what the costs will be to taxpayers. There is no free lunch.

So this measure is not only important, it is necessary. And I have to say, the consequences of corruption are

measured not only in dollars and cents but also in our moral standing around the world.

Just this morning, ProPublica reported that Donald Trump, Jr.'s, lavish wedding in the Caribbean was, in effect, heavily bankrolled by a Russian oligarch with close ties to Putin. His name is Umar Kremlev.

Umar Kremlev is also involved in an organization that reeducates Ukrainian children who have been abducted.

I have been to Ukraine 11 times. On a number of those trips, I have met with children who have been abducted and kidnapped by Vladimir Putin. It is the reason he has been judged and charged as a war criminal. And one of his henchmen, apparently, is Umar Kremlev in reeducating those children so that they will forget their past, forget their language, forget their culture, forget their religion.

This is truly criminal. And Kremlev has paid likely hundreds of thousands of dollars for Donald Junior's lavish wedding. He is in a photograph of the wedding party.

That picture haunts me. Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. And the picture of a man who has, in effect, been complicit in abducting and reeducating children, separating them--and not just a few but literally tens of thousands, as many as 35,000, maybe 50,000 or more--separating them from their families. I wouldn't want to be caught on the same island with him, let alone having him rent the island for a wedding of a family member.

Let me put it another way: Those Americans who are working hard to make ends meet, wondering whether they can afford another $20 or $30 at the supermarket while Donald Trump averaged $6 million a day in 2025, ought to demand of all of us that we pass the Ending Presidential Corruption in Banking Act.

It is the least we can do. It is a first step. And I hope that we will also pass a crypto measure that is worthy of this body and its name.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, the immediate consideration of S. 5389, which the Senator from Massachusetts has requested, has given her an opportunity to blast again President Trump and his family.

World Liberty Financial is not his business; it is his children's business. This body has been very reticent, for good reason, to control the economic activities of the children of Members of the Senate. This is their business, and they have very good reason to choose to go overseas to do that business--because they were debanked in the United States for political reasons. If you have a business that has accounts in American banks and you are told you have got a week to get your money out of that bank and you are going to have to make payroll, you have got a problem.

The Trump kids had a problem because, during the last administration, they were debanked. During the last administration, oil and gas companies were debanked. Firearms companies were debanked. Digital asset banks that were banking digital asset companies and were completely solvent were forced out of business. That is what happens with people who are obsessed with bank surveillance and obsessed with power--that is what they do with it--and now we are seeing it again in

Mr. President, briefly, in response to the gentleman who just spoke, the digital asset bill we are voting on tomorrow, the Clarity Act, gives the Democrats exactly what they asked for on an ethics deal. It requires the President to divest or use a blind trust, disclosure of sales, a ban on promoting your own coin, and State AG enforcement power.

Take the win.

Mr. President, I would like to conclude my remarks. We will talk Clarity tomorrow, and I would like to move into closing the Senate for today and making announcements about tomorrow's schedule.