Sen. John Hickenlooper, D-Colo., criticized President Donald Trump and his special envoy Steve Witkoff after financial disclosures showed both men earned tens of millions of dollars from Trump-linked cryptocurrency ventures. Hickenlooper’s post on X responded to a post from CNN’s Zachary Cohen citing Trump’s disclosed earnings, which itself followed ABC News reporting on Witkoff’s earnings from the same venture.
Hickenlooper: “Corruption at Its Finest”
“The president and his team are getting rich while Americans are struggling to put food on the table,” Hickenlooper wrote. “Corruption at its finest.”
Trump Reported $526 Million From Crypto Token Sales
According to financial disclosures filed over the summer, Trump reported earning $526 million from the sale of cryptocurrency tokens through World Liberty Financial, the crypto venture he launched in 2024 with his sons, plus another $65 million from sales of equity in the firm’s holding company. Separate reporting on the same disclosures put Trump’s total 2025 crypto-related proceeds at roughly $1.1 billion to $1.4 billion when combined with other ventures.
Witkoff Earned Nearly $107 Million From Affiliated Holding Company
Special envoy Steve Witkoff, one of Trump’s lead negotiators on Middle East and Ukraine peace talks, earned nearly $107 million last year from a holding company affiliated with World Liberty Financial, according to financial disclosures obtained by a government watchdog and reported by ABC News. Witkoff was previously listed on World Liberty’s website as “co-founder emeritus,” a title he shared with Trump; the firm is operated by Witkoff’s son, Zach, and Trump’s three sons.
UAE-Backed Firm Invested $500 Million Days Before Trump’s Inauguration
Witkoff’s financial ties to World Liberty Financial have drawn particular scrutiny because of his role negotiating U.S. policy toward Iran. According to the Wall Street Journal, an Abu Dhabi investment vehicle backed by UAE National Security Adviser Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan agreed to a $500 million stake in World Liberty Financial four days before Trump’s January 2025 inauguration, in a deal signed by Eric Trump. Of an initial $250 million payment, $187 million went to Trump family-controlled entities and at least $31 million went to entities affiliated with Witkoff’s family, the Journal reported. A separate $2 billion UAE-backed investment in the firm’s stablecoin followed around the same period Witkoff, as special envoy, was advocating for a deal allowing the UAE to purchase advanced U.S.-made AI chips — an export previously stalled over national security concerns.
Commerce Department Later Tied UAE’s Expanded Access Directly to Iran War Support
The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security announced in a July 10, 2026, rule that it was significantly upgrading the UAE’s export-control status — lifting restrictions on the country’s drone programs and expanding license-free access to advanced AI chips and other controlled technology — explicitly citing the UAE’s status as a “U.S. Major Defense Partner and its support in advancing U.S. national security interests, including Operation Epic Fury,” the formal name for the U.S. military campaign against Iran. The rule followed the Commerce Department’s initial November 2025 approval allowing UAE firm G42 to purchase the equivalent of up to 35,000 advanced Nvidia AI chips.
Iran Accused Witkoff and Kushner of Prioritizing Profit Over Ending the War
Iranian officials reportedly told Vice President JD Vance that Witkoff and fellow envoy Jared Kushner were more focused on personal financial gain than on securing a lasting resolution to the war, which began after the U.S. and Israel struck Iran in late February. Public Citizen, a nonpartisan watchdog group, has argued the UAE arrangement creates “a massive conflict of interest for the conduct of U.S. foreign policy” while Trump prosecutes the war.
Warren and Murphy Opened a Formal Ethics Investigation Into Witkoff
Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Chris Murphy, D-Conn., sent a letter to the White House and the Office of Government Ethics in November 2025 raising concerns that Witkoff’s financial disclosure form contained inaccurate or incomplete information and that his AI-chip advocacy “appears to have aided a foreign power’s effort to acquire U.S. technology with serious economic and national security implications.” The senators noted Witkoff’s ethics forms had still not been approved by White House ethics officials despite his having served in the role since the start of the administration.
World Liberty Financial Is 38% Owned by a Trump-Linked Entity
World Liberty Financial states on its own website that it is 38% owned by “an entity affiliated with Donald J. Trump and certain of his family members.” Trump owns 70% of that entity, according to NOTUS’s reporting on corporate filings.
Trump Regulator Granted the Firm Preliminary Approval to Become a Bank
An affiliated trust company, World Liberty Trust Co., received preliminary conditional approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency on Aug. 14 to organize as a national trust bank, according to the OCC’s own Corporate Decision No. 1385. The charter, if finalized, would let the firm directly issue, redeem and custody its USD1 stablecoin — which has grown to roughly $4 billion in circulation — without relying on third-party providers such as BitGo. The OCC’s decision letter said the agency’s comptroller and staff “acted consistently with their statutory duties and ethical obligations” in reviewing the application. Final approval remains conditional on the company meeting requirements including maintaining at least $20 million in capital and appointing a qualified internal auditor; the charter would not permit the bank to accept federally insured deposits or make loans.
Warren Called the Approval “the Most Brazen Act of Self-Dealing”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, called the OCC’s decision “the most brazen act of self-dealing our financial system has ever seen” and announced she was introducing legislation “to stop this kind of unprecedented corruption.” Warren had separately said before the approval that “we have never seen financial conflicts or corruption of this magnitude.”
White House Says Witkoff Has “Fully Divested” From the Company
White House spokesperson Anna Kelly told ABC News that Witkoff “has now fully divested from World Liberty Financial, and his prior commercial activities are completely unrelated to his efforts to end global conflicts on the President’s behalf.” World Liberty had said in May 2025 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.”
Company Says Bank Charter Will Provide Continued Federal Oversight
A World Liberty Financial spokesperson said the trust company’s national charter “will ensure robust and permanent regulatory supervision from the OCC, a federal banking regulator, that will outlast the Trump administration,” adding, “critics are missing the point: World Liberty Financial is running towards regulation and continuous oversight, not away from it.”
OCC Has Approved Roughly a Dozen Crypto Charters Under Trump-Appointed Comptroller
The OCC, led by Trump-nominated Comptroller Jonathan Gould, has granted conditional approvals to about a dozen crypto firms and received 40 new bank charter applications since 2025, a sharp increase compared with the prior administration, according to agency data cited by CNBC. The regulatory framework enabling these stablecoin bank charters derives from the GENIUS Act, federal legislation establishing standards for payment stablecoin issuers; the OCC had separately granted conditional trust bank approvals to five other crypto firms, including Circle and Ripple, in December 2025.
Hickenlooper Serves on Senate Commerce and Small Business Committees
Hickenlooper, a member of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, has repeatedly criticized the administration’s economic priorities throughout 2026, continuing that pattern in his response to the crypto earnings disclosures.
Zach Witkoff Leads Both the Crypto Firm and Its Proposed Bank
Zach Witkoff, Steve Witkoff’s son, serves as both chief executive of World Liberty Financial and president and chairman of the newly chartered World Liberty Trust Co., placing a single family member at the head of both the crypto venture and its proposed banking arm.