Clarity and Congress’s summer break: State of Crypto

The president also disclosed holding north of $100 million in various cryptos, and a few smaller stakes in firms like Corewave.

Senator Elizabeth Warren, the senior-most Democrat on the Banking Committee, called for an ethics provision in the Clarity Act in a statement after the disclosure, saying, “The crypto legislation heading to the Senate floor must prevent the president, vice president, senior administration officials, members of Congress and their families from profiting off the crypto industry. If it does not, it will only turbocharge Donald Trump’s brazen crypto corruption.”

Similarly, Senator Ruben Gallego said in a post on X after the disclosure that he would do “everything I can to crack down on [Trump’s] corrupt crypto dealings.”

While Gallego was one of two Democrats to vote the bill out of committee, he said during the markup hearing in May that the bill needed “real, enforceable standards” on ethics and that he was not guaranteeing a vote on the Senate floor for the bill.

And while Trump’s disclosure gives Democrats a firm number they can point to when calling for an ethics agreement, it does not fundamentally change the argument over an that provision. Democrats — including Gallego and Senator Angela Alsobrooks, the only other Democrat to vote for the bill in committee — had already made it clear that they wanted a deal that restricts senior government officials like the President from profiting off of crypto before they agree to vote for the bill’s overall passage. Negotiators still have to come to an agreement and Trump will still need to sign off on it, regardless of the disclosure.