U.S. Senator John Hickenlooper, D-Colo., accused President Donald Trump and his administration of enriching themselves at the expense of everyday Americans on Saturday, posting a pointed rebuke on X hours after ABC News reported that special envoy Steve Witkoff earned nearly $107 million last year from a holding company tied to a Trump-affiliated cryptocurrency venture. The post, published to Hickenlooper’s official X account on the war, defense and political leadership beat, framed the disclosure as emblematic of a broader pattern the senator has spent much of 2026 campaigning against ahead of his reelection bid.
Hickenlooper’s post, published at 1:35 PM on September 12, 2026, read in its entirety:
“The president and his team are getting rich while Americans are struggling to put food on the table. Corruption at its finest.”
The ABC News Report That Prompted the Post
Hickenlooper’s statement was posted directly in response to an ABC News report detailing financial disclosures showing Witkoff, one of Trump’s top negotiators on Middle East and Ukraine peace efforts, made nearly $107 million last year from a holding company affiliated with World Liberty Financial, the cryptocurrency firm he cofounded with Trump and members of both of their families. The disclosures were obtained by a government watchdog group.
According to the report, Witkoff was at one point listed as a “co-founder emeritus” on World Liberty’s website, a title he shared with Trump, and the firm is now operated by Witkoff’s son, Zach Witkoff, and three of Trump’s sons. The report noted that both Trump and Witkoff have drawn scrutiny over their involvement in the venture, which recently received preliminary approval from the Trump administration to operate as a bank, with critics arguing the arrangement presents the appearance of a conflict of interest.
World Liberty has previously pushed back on those concerns. In May 2025, the firm stated on X that Witkoff was in the process of divesting and “has no operational role, no financial interest in WLFI deals, and no influence on day-to-day decisions.” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly told ABC News this week that Witkoff has since “fully divested from World Liberty Financial,” adding that his prior commercial activities are “completely unrelated to his efforts to end global conflicts on the President’s behalf.”
Trump’s Own Earnings From the Venture
The ABC report placed Witkoff’s payday alongside Trump’s own financial disclosures, which showed the president reported earning $526 million from the sale of cryptocurrency tokens through World Liberty Financial, plus another $65 million from sales of equity in the firm’s holding company. Separate reporting from Bloomberg, drawing on the same disclosure filings, put Trump’s total take from the venture in 2025 above $594 million, though the filings did not break out how much of Witkoff’s $107 million specifically derived from World Liberty Financial assets, since the disclosure omitted the value and income of the holding company’s underlying assets.
World Liberty Financial, launched before Trump’s second term, is best known for its USD1 stablecoin and also operates a lending-and-borrowing platform. Bloomberg reported that ethics officials had not yet cleared Witkoff’s filing as of publication, and that Witkoff had received a 75-day extension to submit the report.
Congressional Democrats Have Pressed Witkoff Before
Hickenlooper’s post follows months of similar accusations from Senate Democrats. In October 2025, Senators Elissa Slotkin, Adam Schiff and seven colleagues sent Witkoff a letter demanding he explain his failure to divest from World Liberty Financial despite earlier commitments to do so, writing that his continued ownership stake meant he stood “to profit from any decisions” he was involved with while serving in the administration.
Senators Elizabeth Warren and Slotkin separately pressed inspectors general at the State and Commerce Departments, along with the Office of Government Ethics, to investigate whether Witkoff and White House AI and crypto czar David Sacks used their positions to personally benefit from foreign crypto deals, following reporting that tied World Liberty Financial to a UAE agreement involving advanced AI chip exports. Warren said after the State Department inspector general agreed to refer the matter for review that Congress was “owed a full investigation into whether Trump Administration officials used their positions to cash in on foreign crypto deals.”
Hickenlooper’s Own Record on Crypto Oversight
Hickenlooper’s Saturday post is consistent with a longer record of pressing for tighter crypto regulation. As a member of the Senate Commerce Committee, he has previously called on the Securities and Exchange Commission to regulate cryptocurrencies more uniformly, warning that inconsistent enforcement “creates uneven enforcement, and deprives investors of a clear understanding of how they are protected from fraud, manipulation, and abuse.”
More recently, as Ranking Member of the Commerce Committee’s consumer protection subcommittee, Hickenlooper questioned prediction-market executives over the CFTC’s lack of oversight and the potential for insider trading, and joined Senator Jack Reed earlier this year in calling on the CFTC to bar gambling contracts tied to U.S. military operations after reports surfaced of users profiting from the timing of U.S. strikes in Iran and the death of an Iranian ayatollah.
Framing Trump’s Agenda as Corruption Ahead of the Midterms
The senator has repeatedly used the word “corruption” to describe the administration’s conduct throughout his 2026 reelection campaign. In a June release from his Senate office, Hickenlooper said he was “fighting to stop the president’s corrupt agenda that has rigged the system for the Epstein class while leaving working families behind,” while also touting his opposition to the administration’s budget bill and his votes to end the war with Iran.
Campaign materials released by his 2026 reelection effort have carried similar messaging, including an ad titled “For Sale” that the campaign described as rejecting “President Trump’s corruption” while highlighting Hickenlooper’s opposition to a proposed sell-off of public lands.
Linking the Crypto Windfall to Cost-of-Living Concerns
The affordability argument embedded in Saturday’s post — that Trump’s team is profiting while Americans struggle to afford food — echoes language Hickenlooper has used on food security specifically. In November 2025, he joined Senator Michael Bennet in introducing legislation to reverse cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, saying at the time, “We’re the wealthiest country in the world, yet families are struggling to afford groceries,” and blaming Republican-passed cuts for taking “meals away from thousands of Coloradans.”
Other Democrats Have Made Parallel Arguments
Hickenlooper is not alone among Senate Democrats in tying the World Liberty Financial disclosures to broader affordability concerns. Senator Richard Blumenthal, at a public forum on what he called “Trump’s crypto corruption,” argued that the president “has not only used [crypto] to enrich himself, but he’s also sold out the American people,” pointing specifically to Witkoff as an example of an administration insider who has personally benefited. Senator Jeff Merkley has made similar arguments on the Senate floor, describing the arrangement as an “open sale of the government” while pushing for anti-corruption amendments to pending crypto legislation.
Political Backdrop
The post also arrives amid a competitive 2026 Colorado Senate race in which Hickenlooper faces both a Republican challenger and questions about his own vulnerability after years of aligning himself against the Trump administration on cost-of-living and corruption issues. Colorado outlets have reported that Hickenlooper has framed the current administration as “the most corrupt administration ever” on the campaign trail, citing an undeclared war, immigration enforcement actions and tax policy as evidence, while Republican critics have accused him of using food-insecurity claims for political theater.
As of Saturday afternoon, Hickenlooper’s office had not issued a separate press release expanding on the X post, and the White House had not responded directly to his specific characterization of the Witkoff disclosure as “corruption at its finest.” The ABC News report on which the senator’s post was based said Witkoff’s disclosures had not yet been formally cleared by government ethics officials at the time of publication.