'Taken the meaning of corruption to a new level': Elissa Slotkin questions Trumps' cryptocurrency gains

U.S. Senator Elissa Slotkin slammed President Donald Trump on Wednesday, claiming that he had given a whole new meaning to corruption. Slotkin claimed that the President's children had raked in $1.4 billion for their cryptocurrency as their father sat in the Oval Office. She called the White House a "marketplace" as foreign governments and corporations had to either help fund the ballroom project or invest in the President's cryptocurrency, the money from which, she claimed, would go to "his political super PAC."

"And on another level, what Donald Trump has done to our democratic institutions, the independence of the courts, and the neutrality of law enforcement, the basic principle that no one is above the law, that is also corruption. We cannot accept this as the new normal," she added. In a report published earlier this month, Reuters claimed that the President's family had earned $1.4 billion from the sales of governance tokens from World Liberty Financial, the Trumps' flagship crypto venture.

These governance tokens promised "to build and democratize a new financial system for the benefit of millions." However, they have crashed in value of late. This is not unusual for cryptocurrency announced by the President's family ever since he came into power for a second term. In January 2025, the month in which Trump assumed power for a second term, he came out with the $TRUMP meme coin.

Reuters reports that a 29-year-old software project engineer in Santa Barbara, California, Fatime Elrgdawy, put $2,000 into the cryptocurrency, only for its value to tank to less than $120 by the end of May that year. At the time, the President's oldest sons, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., heavily advertised the venture. The $TRUMP meme coin is one of four Trump family crypto projects that have brought immense wealth to the family, even as investors have suffered losses.

The same pattern was seen in other ventures as well, allowing the family to earn at least $2.3 billion in profit through these cryptocurrency projects. The President's two oldest sons also heavily advertised American Bitcoin and AI Financial Corp to gain exposure to crypto tokens. The stock prices of the publicly listed firms have collapsed. However, the Trumps' own crypto business, World Liberty Financial, is set to be handed federal banking privileges.

According to a report in NOTUS, the company founded by the President and his sons applied for a national trust bank charter with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) in January. The head of the OCC was appointed by the President, who, as per industry experts, would likely decide in the President's favor. Two former staffers at the banking regulator said that it is all but certain that the OCC will approve the charter.

"For the first time in history, a president is leaning on a bank regulator to give his private enterprise the implicit backing of the federal government," said Corey Frayer, the director of investor protection for Consumer Federation of America and a former aide to Democrats on the Senate Banking Committee. "It's outrageous."