Senate Democrats on Tuesday demanded immediate hearings into a $500 million UAE investment in the Trump family crypto venture World Liberty Financial.
The Deal Closed Four Days Before Trump's Inauguration
Five senators, including Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), want multiple Senate committees to investigate a transaction in which associates of Abu Dhabi royal Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan bought a 49% stake in World Liberty Financial.
The buyers reportedly wired $218 million upfront to entities controlled by the Trump family and Steve Witkoff, Trump's Middle East envoy, just before Trump took office.
The senators argue no foreign official has ever held this kind of direct ownership stake in a sitting US president's company before.
They want that question answered under oath, specifically who in the administration knew about the payments, and at what point they found out.
A Billion-Dollar Chip Deal Sits At The Center Of The Senators' Concerns
Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) chips are the biggest flashpoint in the senators' letter.
Months after the World Liberty Financial deal closed, Commerce dropped Biden-era export limits that had capped how many advanced chips the UAE could buy, opening the door for G42, an Emirati AI firm run by Sheikh Tahnoon himself, to lock in 35,000 Blackwell chips worth more than $1 billion.
Intelligence officials subsequently found the same firm routing U.S. chip technology toward programs that strengthened China's missile systems, despite G42's earlier pledge to sever its China ties.
Two other moves round out the pattern the senators want explained.
Washington pushed through a $1.4 billion arms sale to the UAE that same window despite lawmaker pushback over Sudan, where the conflict has killed more than 150,000 people.
Moreover, Treasury separately stood up a new fast-track CFIUS review lane, the exact regulatory shortcut UAE officials had been lobbying for.
How This Investigation Has Evolved Since February
Warren first labeled the arrangement crypto corruption back in February, when reports surfaced that Sheikh Tahnoon's firm Aryam Investment became World Liberty Financial's largest shareholder.
Rep. Ro Khanna opened a parallel House investigation the same month. A Wall Street Journal feature found World Liberty Financial generated at least $1.4 billion for the Trump and Witkoff families in just 16 months, more than Trump's real estate empire earned over eight years.
The same UAE ties have now become the central obstacle blocking the CLARITY Act.
A Senate Banking Committee amendment barring the president, vice president, and Congress members from crypto business activity failed in committee on procedural grounds, leaving the ethics dispute unresolved and the bill's path to a floor vote stuck exactly where it was last week.