now that i’ve had more than three hours of sleep i think it’s finally sinking in that in the next couple years i might get to write about hopeful things and not have every podcast interviewer end the episode with “well, on that cheerful note...”
Thoughts tagged "US politics"
Short thoughts, notes, links, and musings by Molly White. RSS 
Here’s a small sample of the letters from Democratic members of Congress I’ve covered since Trump took office. Most were ignored, but they laid the groundwork for what they need to do in January.
![October 8, 2026 Dear Mr. Lutnick: The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (“PSI” or the “Subcommittee”) Minority is investigating the [begin highlight] illicit use of cryptocurrencies and the Trump Administration’s selfenrichment and self-dealings with cryptocurrency firms. President Trump has made over $2 billion since his return to office, with most of this sum coming from his family’s crypto ventures.1 [end highlight] Similarly, [begin highlight] Cantor Fitzgerald’s former Chairman and current Secretary of the Department of Commerce, Howard Lutnick, has made over $250 million in that same time period, [end highlight] including a $192 million distribution from Cantor Fitzgerald.2 Cantor Fitzgerald has benefited alongside Lutnick in the last two years, in large part due to its partnership with Tether. Since the President’s return to office, Cantor Fitzgerald’s five percent stake in Tether has increased in value from $600 million to an estimated $10 billion, in addition to the tens of millions of dollars the company collects every year from the assets it holds for Tether.3 Disturbingly, Cantor Fitzgerald’s lucrative business arrangements with Tether come at the expense of America’s national security. On September 28, the Subcommittee released a new report, “Tethered to Terrorism: Crypto & Iran’s Shadow Banking Network,” which demonstrated that Tether and its dollar-pegged stablecoin USDT have become a crucial tool for Iranian shadow](https://storage.mollywhite.net/micro/676eecf20744c19909d4_2026-10-08-lutnick.png)
![Senate Banking Committee August 5, 2026 Dear Secretary Lutnick: I write to request information regarding the Commerce Department’s recent decision to roll back export controls and grant the United Arab Emirates (UAE) sweeping, license-free access to sensitive U.S. technology.1 [begin highlight] This decision comes after UAE entities tied to the nation’s top intelligence official reportedly invested half a billion dollars and took board seats in the Trump family crypto venture, World Liberty Financial (WLF).2 [end highlight] It is deeply concerning that some of those same UAE entities will now have license-free access to advanced AI chips, despite reported warnings from the Department of Commerce’s own staff that the technology could get diverted to China.3 [begin highlight] The Department’s actions raise significant questions about the potential influence the President’s cryptocurrency business interests may be having on the agency’s operations and our national security. [end highlight] The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) plays an important role in safeguarding sensitive U.S. technology. BIS requires licenses for exports of sensitive items, and harmonizes export controls with allies and partners to ensure compliance by regulated industries. BIS designates countries with close strategic trading relationships, including U.S. allies like the United Kingdom and Australia, within Country Group A:5.4 This designation specifically authorizes the export of](https://storage.mollywhite.net/micro/99b12204981eed1c4a28_2026-08-05-lutnick.png)
![Senate Banking Committee April 15, 2026 The Honorable Paul Atkins Chairman Securities and Exchange Commission 100 F St NE Washington, D.C. 20549 Dear Chairman Atkins, I write regarding the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (the “Commission” or “SEC”) publication of Fiscal Year 2025 (“FY 2025”) enforcement data,1 which the agency finally released last week following a months-long delay.2 The trends revealed by these data were [begin highlight] deeply disturbing, [end highlight] showing that the Commission has largely [begin highlight] abdicated its enforcement responsibilities since you took office, [end highlight] with enforcement activity declining by 20%—to the lowest level in more than 20 years.3 These data also raise [begin highlight] significant concerns about your candor [end highlight] with Congress at a February 12, 2026 hearing before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs (“Banking Committee”). At the hearing,4 I specifically asked you to comment on publicly available data highlighting a decline in SEC enforcement activity. In response, you demurred, stating that you were “not sure what data” I was looking at: Senator Warren: So the SEC is supposed to be the cop on the beat, enforc[ing] our securities laws...But under your watch, the SEC doesn't seem interested in enforcing our laws against corporate crime. So I’m looking at the data here and over the past year, the SEC has](https://storage.mollywhite.net/micro/36be63c3f4588b42399e_2026-04-15-atkins.png)
![Senate Banking Committee January 13, 2026 Dear Comptroller Gould: On January 7, 2026, World Liberty Financial (WLF), a financial company cofounded by President Trump and his two sons, submitted an application with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to operate a “national trust bank purpose-built for stablecoin services.”1 In July 2025, I wrote to you regarding this exact possibility and requested information on your plans to ensure that [begin highlight] President Trump’s significant financial conflicts of interest [end highlight] do not influence OCC policy. In your response, you refused to answer “hypothetical questions” about an entity that “is not currently subject to the OCC’s supervision.”2 Those questions are no longer hypothetical. Your dismissive response, and [begin highlight] your willingness to rubber stamp the President’s dangerous agenda during your tenure as Comptroller, give me no confidence that you will fairly assess the application pursuant to the legal standard for approval. [end highlight] [begin highlight] We have never seen financial conflicts or corruption of this magnitude. [end highlight] The United States Congress failed to address them when it passed the GENIUS Act into law—so it is incumbent for the Senate to address these real and serious conflicts of interest as it considers crypto market structure legislation. In the meantime, to mitigate the public’s legitimate concerns regarding Presidential corruption, you must delay review of this application until President Trump divests from WLF and eliminates all financial conflicts of interest involving himself or his family and the company. WLF was launched in 2024.3 According to Eric Trump, President Trump and his family have probably earned more than one billion dollars from WLF and other cryptocurrency ventures.4 In](https://storage.mollywhite.net/micro/4d507a11094cf6601709_2026-01-13-wlf-occ.png)
![Senate Banking Committee April 22, 2026 Dear Mr. Luckey: I am writing to request information regarding the attached document (Attachment A), which appears to be the Erebor Bank fundraising memo that you refused to provide in response to my February 26, 2026, letter requesting the document. If this fundraising memo was, in fact, prepared by Erebor, [begin highlight] the company appears to have communicated to potential investors that it would obtain a national bank charter due to your “political network” and a co-founder’s “unique” connections to President Donald Trump’s Comptroller of the Currency, Jonathan Gould.1 [end highlight] The document raises serious concerns: It suggests that Erebor either was confident that the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) would [begin highlight] provide it a charter as a political favor [end highlight] or that it [begin highlight] may have misled investors in violation of federal securities laws. [end highlight] Therefore, I once again request information to help me better understand the role of Erebor’s political connections in securing a national bank charter. The fundraising memo asserts that Erebor would “receive bank charter in less than 6 months from submission.”2 The memo then describes the reason for the company’s confidence in obtaining the charter: “Co-Founder’s unique connectivity to banking regulators (especially Jonathan Gould, next Comptroller) + Palmer’s political network will get this done.”3 On October 15, 2025, Erebor’s charter was granted by the OCC only four months after submission.4 The FDIC approved Erebor’s federal deposit insurance application two months later.5 The bank opened its doors on February 8, 2026.6 The memo also suggests that [begin highlight] Erebor plans to leverage its political connections to secure policy changes that preference its planned business model: [end highlight]](https://storage.mollywhite.net/micro/edcbc78decdb4cfbf71a_2026-04-22-erebor.png)
![US Senate January 28, 2026 Dear Deputy Attorney General Blanche: Last year, we asked for the rationale behind [begin highlight] your puzzling decision to scale back the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) cryptocurrency enforcement efforts [end highlight] and urged you to reconsider.1 We write now in light of recent reporting that [begin highlight] you held substantial amounts of cryptocurrency at the time you made this decision.2 Your actions may be a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 208(a). At the very least, you had a glaring conflict of interest and should have recused yourself. [end highlight] We warned in our prior letter that disbanding the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team and taking a hands-off approach to the exchanges, mixers, and other tools that criminals use to obscure the sources and uses of their cryptocurrency were “grave mistakes that will support sanctions evasion, drug trafficking, scams, and child sexual exploitation.”3 DOJ’s perfunctory response to our letter promised that prosecutors would target criminals using cryptocurrency in furtherance of their crimes. Unfortunately, our predictions have proven correct, with illicit cryptocurrency activity soaring 162% in 2025.4 This increase was driven primarily by a dramatic rise in the receipt of cryptocurrency by sanctioned entities, but most categories of crypto crime saw increases, including human trafficking and other violent crime.5 Moreover, Chinese money laundering networks—to which the Trump Administration has drawn attention for moving billions for Mexican drug cartels—have now emerged as a “dominant force” in the digital asset ecosystem.6](https://storage.mollywhite.net/micro/acf96a728a8dd340542e_2026-01-28-blanche.png)
![US Senate September 23, 2025 Dear Mr. Townsend, Mr. Baker, and Mr. Ueland, We write to request that you [begin highlight] investigate the roles of two senior Administration officials, David Sacks and Steve Witkoff, in advocating for the United States to sell sensitive national security technology to the United Arab Emirates (UAE). [end highlight] As Inspectors General and Designated Agency Ethics Officials, you are responsible for investigating conflicts of interest and ethics violations. If public reporting is accurate, it appears that [begin highlight] Mr. Sacks and Mr. Witkoff, in exchange for personal benefit, may have aided a foreign power’s effort to acquire U.S. technology that could present serious economic and national security risks [end highlight] – including use to enhance weapons that could be used against American service members. [begin highlight] This conduct compromised national security and may have violated federal ethics laws. [end highlight] According to reports, Mr. Witkoff and Mr. Sacks both played key roles in the White House’s decision to relax national security restrictions on the shipment of advanced AI systems to the UAE.1 They have both publicly defended the deal. However, [begin highlight] neither of them have disclosed their financial ties to the UAE’s national security advisor, Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, and the personal benefits they have received from the Sheikh’s $2 billion investment in the President’s stablecoin, USD1.2 [end highlight]](https://storage.mollywhite.net/micro/4c2f649063174a231b83_2025-09-23-townsend.png)
![US Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs May 26, 2025 VIA ELECTRONIC MAIL Dear Mr. Witkoff: The Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (“PSI” or “the Subcommittee”) is conducting a [begin highlight] preliminary inquiry into potential conflicts of interest and violations of the law from President Trump’s cryptocurrency ventures, including World Liberty Financial Inc. (WLFI) and associated businesses’ financial dealings with foreign nationals, foreign governments, and other cryptocurrency firms. [end highlight] Recent reports indicate that [begin highlight] WLFI may be enabling the violation of government ethics requirements, seeking investments from foreign governments, facilitating financial transactions with foreign nationals under federal prosecution, and potentially violating federal laws, including the foreign emoluments clause of the Constitution.1 [end highlight] I therefore write to request information and records regarding the ownership and financial structure of WLFI, investments in its cryptocurrency operations and agreements with other cryptocurrency firms, and the steps that you have taken to address the potential for significant conflicts of interest or national security risks posed by this business venture. World Liberty Financial launched in September 2024 with the promise of “driving the mass adoption of stablecoins and decentralized finance.”2 Rather than initially offering a cryptocurrency, its first venture was a ‘governance token’3 that has been described as a](https://storage.mollywhite.net/micro/a6b478a6c3a6bd4f08c8_2025-05-06-wlI.png)
got my coffee, got my snacks, ready to watch how crypto and AI’s $250 million campaign finance blitz turns out
If you are reading this, you are someone who reads the news, and if you are someone reading the news, that hand is throttling your heart right now. On some level, you know this, but you are likely so used to it that you do not really know how hard it’s squeezing, and how much it saps your strength.
There is a difference between burying your head in the sand and periodically reminding ourselves that the world can be beautiful and good. We have somehow become convinced that turning away even for a second is a betrayal of the most vulnerable amongst us, but constant activation paralyzes us with dread and leaves us too exhausted to take action. Hyperawareness is not a virtue, it’s a symptom of mental illness—ask your complex post-traumatic stress disorder friends about it sometime. We are not betraying the cause by turning off our phones for a few hours; we are not lazy pieces of shit who deserve to be poor when we opt for sleep over pseudoproductivity.
In July 2024, I reported that Coinbase appeared to be violating campaign finance law by making contributions while holding federal contracts. I filed an FEC complaint alongside Public Citizen. The FEC hasn’t acted. Since, Coinbase has given $60M more and landed another federal contract.
Coinbase responded to the initial complaint by arguing that, despite having received a federal contract, they were not a federal contractor — then insinuated I had secret funders and made lightly veiled legal threats against me.
“It’s bad enough when the laws are weak or there are loopholes in the law, but it’s almost worse when you have laws on the books that aren’t being enforced because the regulator is inadequate, and that’s the situation where we’re finding ourselves now,” said Eric Petry, counsel in the Brennan Center for Justice’s elections and government program.
I track Coinbase’s (and its top executives’) campaign spending. They’ve spent $100 million+ since 2024 across super PACs, Trump campaign committees, and other individual candidates.
The Clarity Act cloture vote has failed by a 49–50 margin; well short of the 60 votes needed. No Democrats crossed over to vote for the bill, and three Republicans voted against.
Senator Collins’ (R-ME) NO vote on Clarity was the most surprising today. She was defending the bill to constituents as recently as last week. My guess is she did not believe the bill had a chance to pass, and was more worried about defending a yes vote as her re-election prospects look slimmer.
Senators Hawley (R-MO) and Moran (R-KS), neither of whom are up for re-election, were the other NOs. They had already pledged to vote against the previous version of the bill, citing concerns from farmers over loan availability from local banks competing with stablecoins.
A bit rich for Senator Bernie Moreno — by far the #1 beneficiary of crypto super PAC spending in 2024, now a champion of the industry's legislation — to accuse anyone of caping for special interest super PACs
Just had to patch a bug on the Tech Influence Watch Michigan House District 13 election page, stemming from Shri Thanedar reporting -$1.1 million in receipts.
Why is Thanedar reporting negative receipts? He put $3.7 million of campaign funds into crypto.
Setting aside the absurd premise of this op-ed, I love that the writer felt the need to hedge with "not that has been reported"
"No one's reported that one of the most famous popstars in the world dated a man who at the time was a random oyster farmer from Maine, BUT IT IS POSSIBLE"
One of the government's attorneys in the CFTC's lawsuit against the states who've sued Kalshi was a lawyer for Kalshi in its lawsuit against the CFTC in 2023. He joined the DOJ in February 2025.
