House Financial Services roundtable spotlights Trump-linked crypto ventures, urges tighter rules and ethics ban for officials

Ranking Member Waters convened a roundtable at the House Financial Services Committee to examine what witnesses called conflicts of interest and national-security risks tied to cryptocurrency ventures associated with President Donald Trump and his family.

The session featured four invited witnesses: Chastity Murphy, a visiting research fellow at the University of Manchester Law and Technology Initiative and former senior adviser at the U.S. Department of the Treasury; Timothy Massad, research fellow and director of the digital assets policy project at the Harvard Kennedy School and former CFTC chair; Mark Hayes, senior policy analyst at Americans for Financial Reform; and Jeff Hauser, founder and executive director of the Revolving Door Project.

Murphy framed the discussion around corruption and national security. "I'm here to sound the alarm about the risk posed by the convergence of unchecked crypto speculation and high level corruption, especially by President Donald Trump," she said, describing what she called "pay-to-play politics" enabled by crypto and asserting that "World Liberty Financial, Trump's major crypto venture, recently struck a $2,000,000,000 deal with a UAE-backed firm." Murphy said she supports a legislative ban that would bar the president and members of Congress from owning crypto assets or crypto firms and called for "beneficial ownership transparency, anti-evasion rules, independent audits or compliance mechanisms, and a mandatory divestment upon taking office."

Timothy Massad urged Congress to "do no harm" to existing capital markets while closing…