“We have never seen financial conflicts or corruption of this magnitude.”
Eric Trump, Donald Trump Jr., and others ring the Nasdaq opening bell on August 13, 2025 in New York City.
(Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
Jake Johnson
Aug 15, 2026
RAW STORY
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, a regulatory agency whose leader was chosen by President Donald Trump, granted preliminary approval on Friday to World Liberty Financial’s application for a federal bank charter.
World Liberty Financial is a crypto venture launched in 2024 by the president’s two eldest sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, and several partners. The firm’s website states that WLF is 38% owned by “an entity affiliated with Donald J. Trump and certain of his family members.”
WLF applied for a US bank charter in January, drawing alarm from lawmakers and watchdogs who said the review process would be rife with conflicts of interest. “We have never seen financial conflicts or corruption of this magnitude,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, said at the time.
The OCC, headed by Jonathan Gould, announced the approval decision in a letter published Friday. WLF’s application was assessed by career OCC staff, the agency said.
“The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has reviewed your application to establish a new national trust bank, which will engage in operations of a trust company and activities related thereto, including fiduciary activities, with the title of World Liberty Trust Company, National Association,” the letter states. “The OCC hereby grants preliminary conditional approval of your charter application upon determining that your proposal meets certain regulatory and policy requirements.”
In response to the news, Warren wrote on social media that “this is the most brazen act of self-dealing our financial system has ever seen.”
Reuters reported that the charter, if finalized, would allow World Liberty’s “to directly issue its USD1 stablecoin, as well as custody the US dollar assets backing it, both of which are now handled by a business partner, BitGo.”
“Hoping to capitalize on the Trump administration’s crypto-friendly stance, the industry has been knocking on the OCC’s door for such charters,” Reuters noted. “They allow crypto companies to hold assets on behalf of clients nationwide under a single federal charter, as well as to provide other settlement and asset servicing functions—making it easier to court major institutional clients. Other crypto firms, including Ripple and Circle, have received preliminary approval for such charters under Comptroller Jonathan Gould.”
World Liberty Financial welcomed the OCC’s preliminary approval as “a milestone in a multi-step chartering process.” The firm said in a press release that the newly formed bank’s board would be chaired by Zach Witkoff, the son of Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East.
Last year, Trump reaped around $527 million in proceeds from token sales by WLF, according to financial disclosures released in late June.
“They are making sure they are rich beyond their wildest dreams long after Trump departs the White House (if he departs the White House),” journalist Mehdi Hasan wrote in response to the OCC decision. “It’s so openly and nakedly and obviously corrupt, I’m not sure it can be overstated.”
Corrupt Trump Makes $1.1 Million an Hour by Grifting the US People
Democratic leaders should make it very clear that the president is unfairly profiting from his position and hold shadow hearings detailing how he has done it.
Democratic leaders should make it very clear that the president is unfairly profiting from his position and hold shadow hearings detailing how he has done it.
A Donald Trump coin is pictured alongside Bitcoin and various other cryptocurrencies in this photo illustration in Brussels, Belgium, on August 5, 2025.
(Photo by Jonathan Raa/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Ralph Nader
Aug 15, 2026
Common Dreams
To House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer—Your responses on July 1, 2026 on the reporting of the $2.2 billion profit personally reaped by President Donald Trump, while allegedly a public servant in 2025, was not specific enough.
Jeffries (NY) wrote on his social media account: “Donald Trump made more than $2 billion during his first year as President. Republicans are enriching themselves while making your life more expensive. We must crush the culture of corruption.”
Schumer (NY) wrote on his: “$2.2 BILLION for the Trump family. Higher costs for the American people.”
You should have described his huge loot as $1.1 million an hour. That’s right, $1.1 million an hour based on a 40-hour work week over one year. (And remember, Trump spends a lot of his time on his vengeance missions, his golf game, and napping—so a 40-hour work week is a generous estimate.)
You can ask for widespread feedback from the American people and make it part of his widely discernible profiteering persona of greed and lawless power.
You should have then compared that enormous sum per hour with the Trump-GOP supported federal minimum wage, frozen at $7.25 per hour. This would have given you the perfect occasion to highlight the case for a much higher federal minimum wage, helping tens of millions of American workers.
You also omitted his unlawful agreement with the Internal Revenue Service to give him a free ride on tax abuses.
Such profiteering from his public office at $1.1 million an hour is staggering, especially when you detail where it came from. This would have resonated with a huge portion of the voting public, including Republicans. Instead, Democrats lost the opportunity to make that stunningly understandable communication. But it is not too late to revive and make more concrete his boastful misuse of the office of the presidency. You can compare it with past presidents’ sense of self restraint. You can ask for widespread feedback from the American people and make it part of his widely discernible profiteering persona of greed and lawless power.
One further response to this mountain of greed by Donald Trump should be joint shadow hearings between the House and Senate Democrats during this August recess. This would bring this appalling engagement by Trump in his various investment arrangements to a wider audience and highlight recommendations of reforms to prevent such massive and dubious self-enrichment by a president of the United States. There will be many competent legal and other experts to testify at your hearings, which no doubt will reveal more information and reach a large audience during the August recess.
These hearings would provide the Capitol press corps with much needed information to fulfill their professional responsibility to provide the people with their right to know the fuller details of what has yet not been reported.
Another way to put it is, you don’t make $1.1 million an hour by pushing a button. There is a lot of personal hidden back-and-forths by many people and many conflicts of interest to make that rich haul a reality.
Contact your Democratic members of Congress and demand shadow hearings. Ask for their written response. Do your part to help make it happen. The Congressional Switchboard number is 202-224-3121.
To House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer—Your responses on July 1, 2026 on the reporting of the $2.2 billion profit personally reaped by President Donald Trump, while allegedly a public servant in 2025, was not specific enough.
Jeffries (NY) wrote on his social media account: “Donald Trump made more than $2 billion during his first year as President. Republicans are enriching themselves while making your life more expensive. We must crush the culture of corruption.”
Schumer (NY) wrote on his: “$2.2 BILLION for the Trump family. Higher costs for the American people.”
You should have described his huge loot as $1.1 million an hour. That’s right, $1.1 million an hour based on a 40-hour work week over one year. (And remember, Trump spends a lot of his time on his vengeance missions, his golf game, and napping—so a 40-hour work week is a generous estimate.)
You can ask for widespread feedback from the American people and make it part of his widely discernible profiteering persona of greed and lawless power.
You should have then compared that enormous sum per hour with the Trump-GOP supported federal minimum wage, frozen at $7.25 per hour. This would have given you the perfect occasion to highlight the case for a much higher federal minimum wage, helping tens of millions of American workers.
You also omitted his unlawful agreement with the Internal Revenue Service to give him a free ride on tax abuses.
Such profiteering from his public office at $1.1 million an hour is staggering, especially when you detail where it came from. This would have resonated with a huge portion of the voting public, including Republicans. Instead, Democrats lost the opportunity to make that stunningly understandable communication. But it is not too late to revive and make more concrete his boastful misuse of the office of the presidency. You can compare it with past presidents’ sense of self restraint. You can ask for widespread feedback from the American people and make it part of his widely discernible profiteering persona of greed and lawless power.
One further response to this mountain of greed by Donald Trump should be joint shadow hearings between the House and Senate Democrats during this August recess. This would bring this appalling engagement by Trump in his various investment arrangements to a wider audience and highlight recommendations of reforms to prevent such massive and dubious self-enrichment by a president of the United States. There will be many competent legal and other experts to testify at your hearings, which no doubt will reveal more information and reach a large audience during the August recess.
These hearings would provide the Capitol press corps with much needed information to fulfill their professional responsibility to provide the people with their right to know the fuller details of what has yet not been reported.
Another way to put it is, you don’t make $1.1 million an hour by pushing a button. There is a lot of personal hidden back-and-forths by many people and many conflicts of interest to make that rich haul a reality.
Contact your Democratic members of Congress and demand shadow hearings. Ask for their written response. Do your part to help make it happen. The Congressional Switchboard number is 202-224-3121.
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