Today, Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), the top Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, took to the House floor to blast H.R. 3633, Republicans’ so called “CLARITY Act.” The bill presents several serious risks: it exposes consumers to exploitation by bad actors in the crypto industry, undermines national security, and ignores Donald Trump’s escalating conflicts of interest tied to his personal involvement in cryptocurrency.
“Crypto week has been going so well, hasn’t it? Mr. Speaker, that’s because bailing out billionaires is hard work. Look how hard Republicans worked to strip healthcare from 17 million Americans, shutter rural hospitals, and take food assistance from 12 million people, just to hand the richest 1 percent of Americans a tax break they don’t need.
No one should be surprised that the Republicans’ next order of business is a billion-dollar handout to the President himself. In just six months, President Trump has enriched himself and his family to the tune of $1.2 billion, and that’s just the beginning.
President Trump used to call crypto a scam. In 2021, Trump said ‘Bitcoin,’ it just seems like a scam. I don’t like it because it’s another currency competing against the dollar.’ Melania was actually first to get involved in the crypto ecosystem. In January 2022, she announced an auction of her Non-Fungible Token, or NFT, collection. Trump then followed suit in December 2022, launching his own NFT collection, ditching his concerns about crypto because he saw it as a way to pad his pockets.
During the campaign trail, Trump ramped up his crypto involvement. In September 2024, he and his family launched World Liberty Financial, a crypto trading platform. Days before the inauguration, Trump launched his memecoin, which he later used to offer access to the White House, to the highest bidder, foreign or domestic.
But his family’s crypto empire hasn’t stopped there. World Liberty Financial launched a stablecoin called USD ONE. And shortly thereafter, the Abu-Dhabi-backed investment firm, MGX, bought $2 billion of Trump’s coin to make an investment in Binance.
Trump’s family has also launched a Bitcoin mining operation and multiple crypto exchange traded funds, or ETFs.
All of this comes at the same time that the Trump Administration has taken away the independence of the financial regulators, like the Securities and Exchange Commission. He issued Executive Order 14255, which now requires all rules written by the financial regulators to be reviewed and approved by —guess what— the White House Budget Office. That means this bill would hand over to the President the ability to write the rules he wants, to advance his crypto operations.
Not only that, but under the Trump administration, the SEC has said that memecoins, stablecoins, and Bitcoin mining all do not fall under their oversight. Can you imagine that? Do these assets sound familiar? Yes they do, because these are all ventures that Trump and his family are pursuing, now with NO oversight, no oversight by Wall Street’s cop on the beat.
Surely, each of you can see how this is a blatant conflict of interest, right?
Well, Democrats do. It is why I introduced the ‘Stop TRUMP in Crypto Act’ to ban the President, Vice President, and all the Members of Congress from crypto corruption. If we do not ban elected officials, including the President or Vice President, from this crypto corruption in H.R. 3633, each of us will be complicit.
And, yet, even if we included language to stop the crypto con, this bill, which should be called the ‘CALAMITY Act,’ is bad public policy, plain and simple. This bill would lead to increased investor harm, plant the seeds for the next financial crisis, and endanger our national security.
Just last week, the former Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission warned that this bill would allow traditional companies, like Apple or Google, to evade securities laws. They could walk away from the disclosure, anti-fraud, liability, and corporate governance protections that investors have relied on for ninety years. And the bill blocks our state regulators from protecting seniors against fraud in crypto.
Additionally, the ‘CALAMITY Act’ does not address illicit finance, and other crimes commonly seen in the crypto space. It does not provide nearly enough direction to agencies, which would be required to match the level of financial crimes and noncompliance seen in the industry. Nor does it provide sufficient funds for Federal agencies to examine and enforce these laws.
For all these reasons, I strongly strongly oppose this bill.”
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