A US congressman wants to outlaw the trading of stocks or cryptocurrency by US President Donald Trump, his family, and Congress members.
During an appearance on MSNBC, US Representative Ro Khanna, a Democrat from California’s 17th Congressional District and vice-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, voiced concerns about Trump’s apparent conflict of interest with cryptocurrency through his son’s cryptocurrency project World Liberty Financial (WLFI), calling the recent pardoning of Binance co-founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao “blatant corruption.“
A ban for Trump and family in crypto
“You’ve got a foreign billionaire who was basically engaged in money-laundering,” Khanna said of CZ, adding, “then he petitions for a pardon from Donald Trump after basically funnelling money to terrorists.”
But lately, CZ responded to similar charges made by Senator Elizabeth Warren, saying that she “can’t get her facts right.”
After failing to keep up an efficient Anti-Money Laundering (AML) policy at Binance, CZ entered a guilty plea to one felony count of violating the US Bank Secrecy Act.
Khanna, repeating similar remarks made by US Representative Maxine Waters, said that the Binance co-founder was being absolved because of Binance’s financial support of WLFI.
He said, “And what he does is he says ‘I’m going to support World Liberty,’ which is the president’s son’s cryptocurrency firm, which they’re making millions of dollars on while Donald Trump is president. And Donald Trump gives him a pardon while he is basically financing Donald Trump’s cryptocurrency stablecoin.”
Trump and Crypto
Trump’s relationship with WLFI has drawn criticism on several occasions, although his son Eric Trump has constantly denied that his father is involved in the project. Eric emphasised that his father “is running a nation” in a September interview. He has no involvement at all in our operations.
Khanna’s 2023 Act helped influence current bipartisan attempts to prohibit politicians from trading stocks or cryptocurrency while in office, even though it languished in committee and was never passed.
Donald Trump has been very actively involved in the crypto industry ever since he took office earlier this year. In January, he launched the Trump memecoin and his wife launched Melania Memecoin.
According to reports, Trump’s family’s crypto venture has led to their net worth shooting by $1 billion in the last year. However, Donald Trump denied profiting from $TRUMP memecoin.
His involvement in crypto trading and businesses can definitely create a conflict of interest, given his powerful role in US politics and how closely the crypto market gets influenced by political figures.