‘Brazen Act of Self-Dealing’
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World Liberty Financial is a crypto venture launched in 2024
by the president’s two eldest sons, Donald Trump Jr.
and Eric Trump, and several partners. The firm’s website states
that WLF is 38% owned by “an entity affiliated with Donald J. Trump and certain
of his family members.”
WLF applied for a US bank charter in January, drawing
alarm from lawmakers and watchdogs who
said the review process would be rife with conflicts of interest. “We have
never seen financial conflicts or corruption of this
magnitude,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.),
the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, said at the time.
The OCC, headed by Jonathan Gould, announced the approval
decision in a letter published Friday. WLF’s application was
assessed by career OCC staff, the agency said.
“The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has
reviewed your application to establish a new national trust bank, which will
engage in operations of a trust company and activities related thereto,
including fiduciary activities, with the title of World Liberty Trust Company,
National Association,” the letter states. “The OCC hereby grants preliminary
conditional approval of your charter application upon determining that your
proposal meets certain regulatory and policy requirements.”
In response to the news, Warren wrote
on social media that “this is the most brazen act of self-dealing our
financial system has ever seen.”
Reuters reported that the charter, if finalized, would allow World Liberty’s “to directly issue its USD1 stablecoin, as well as custody the US dollar assets backing it, both of which are now handled by a business partner, BitGo.”
“Hoping to capitalize on the Trump administration’s
crypto-friendly stance, the industry has been knocking on the OCC’s door for
such charters,” Reuters noted. “They allow crypto companies to hold assets on
behalf of clients nationwide under a single federal charter, as well as to
provide other settlement and asset servicing functions—making it easier to
court major institutional clients. Other crypto firms, including Ripple and
Circle, have received preliminary approval for such charters
under Comptroller Jonathan Gould.”
World Liberty Financial welcomed the OCC’s preliminary
approval as “a milestone in a multi-step chartering process.” The firm said in
a press release that the newly formed bank’s board would
be chaired by Zach Witkoff, the son of Trump’s special envoy to the Middle
East.
Last year, Trump reaped
around $527 million in proceeds from token sales by WLF, according
to financial disclosures released in late June.
“They are making sure they are rich beyond their wildest
dreams long after Trump departs the White House (if he
departs the White House),” journalist Mehdi Hasan wrote in
response to the OCC decision. “It’s so openly and nakedly and obviously
corrupt, I’m not sure it can be overstated.”
