Senator Warren blasts the CLARITY Act: paving the way for Trump's corruption

Editor's Note: The "Clarity Act" was rejected by the senator, and the market doesn't seem too surprised. After all, the probability of it passing was less than twenty percent. Among all the dissenting votes, Senator Warren's remarks are certainly the most representative. She bluntly pointed out Trump's corruption, believing that this bill is of no use to the vast majority of cryptocurrency users.
Below is a compilation of Warren's remarks.

This bill will accelerate Donald Trump's unprecedented corruption.
Donald Trump's main campaign promise was that he would lower prices from day one—this is his promise, his exact words. But in reality, Trump's tariffs, his perpetual wars on the other side of the world, his cuts to healthcare, and his shutdown of cheaper clean energy—Trump's policies are driving up costs across the board. From groceries to gasoline, from healthcare to utilities, everything is rising, rising, rising.
While Donald Trump is raising costs for working people, he is also using the presidency to enrich himself, adding cryptocurrency to his means of amassing wealth. Donald Trump has not intensified efforts to prosecute crypto scams or stop terrorists and drug traffickers from using cryptocurrency; instead, he has used his power to promote cryptocurrency. He has touted cryptocurrency, held a cryptocurrency contest with a prize of dinner with the president, and appointed crypto-friendly regulators. Thus, money has been continuously flowing to him.
Shortly before his second inauguration, Trump launched his own crypto business. Goodness, that man's start was truly remarkable. As he promoted cryptocurrency, money kept pouring in. In just 2025, Trump and his family earned $1.4 billion from their crypto projects. In fact, Donald Trump made more money from cryptocurrency last year than any publicly traded crypto company in the U.S. No one benefits more from this bill than the President of the United States.
Well, so Trump is winning big in cryptocurrency. Who is losing? It is the working people who follow their leader. Those who bought into Trump's crypto projects have already lost billions of dollars. For example, fans who purchased Trump meme coins have lost nearly $4 billion. Yet Trump continues to promote the crypto industry. He disbanded the Justice Department's crypto enforcement team, withdrew enforcement actions against companies that donated millions to his campaign, and has repeatedly pardoned convicted crypto executives. Trump's corruption is so widespread that it has eroded the entire regulatory framework for crypto finance. Now Republicans not only turn a blind eye to Trump's corruption; they want to vote today to further this corruption.
Late Sunday night, Republicans announced a new ethical provision negotiated between Republicans and the White House. These provisions read like something the most corrupt president in our history would approve—a little fig leaf claiming they are taking action against corruption, but the wording is carefully crafted to ensure it does not prevent Donald Trump from earning his next $1.4 billion in crypto profits.
First, the new text guarantees that Donald Trump will never, ever be held accountable under the law. Why? Because Trump's lackeys will have the power to halt any enforcement of ethical provisions against Donald Trump. The text states that the Attorney General—you know, the one who said at his confirmation hearing, "I am Trump's lawyer, not the lawyer for the United States," Trump's lawyer—this person will decide whether to take enforcement action against the president. The bill does not allow state attorneys general to take any enforcement action against the president. All they can do is try to sue Trump's former personal lawyer, the Attorney General, to do something. And the best part is: no one believes the Attorney General will take action against Donald Trump.
But this bill has built-in double insurance to ensure that Donald Trump's profit-making schemes continue unabated. The bill states that Trump’s handpicked loyalists in the government ethics office can wave a magic wand, issue a legal opinion, and then, like magic, Donald Trump will suddenly be protected, completely immune from any enforcement action regarding his next round of crypto scams. An ethical restriction that the president himself can render completely ineffective does not count as an ethical restriction at all.
Second, even if these provisions were enforceable, there are huge loopholes that would allow Trump to continue profiting from his crypto empire. According to the new text, Trump will be allowed to continue earning hundreds of millions from his crypto projects, including World Freedom Finance and his meme coins. Trump can not only easily retain or restructure existing crypto projects but can also create new ones—additional corruption. For example, the new text does not prevent Donald Trump from becoming the first president in U.S. history to own and regulate his own bank. Finally, Trump can place his assets into a nominal blind trust while still clearly knowing what assets are inside and still controlling the regulators who can elevate the value of Donald Trump's crypto investments. Trump has already earned $1.4 billion as a crypto speculator in just 2025, and the bill that Republicans want to vote on today will ensure he can continue to rake in money.
The problems are not just with the ethical provisions. This bill will make it easier for terrorist organizations, drug cartels, and rogue nations to buy and sell weapons, bribe government officials—all using cryptocurrency. It will make it easier for terrorists to fund their operations and harder for law enforcement to catch them. It will make it easier for scammers to defraud Americans and harder for law enforcement to catch them. It will make it easier for Iran and North Korea to evade sanctions and harder for law enforcement to catch them.
This bill will expose all of us to the risk of an economic collapse triggered by cryptocurrency. This crypto bill has turned into a Christmas tree, adorned with gifts for other high-risk scammers. For example, the bill will blow a big hole in our nearly century-old securities laws, allowing and encouraging companies with no connection to cryptocurrency to throw assets onto the blockchain to evade investor protections that apply to traditional securities—you know, like stocks and the stock market. This could siphon billions of dollars from our stock market, which families rely on to fund their retirement savings; it could also destroy the safeguards established after the Great Depression. In fact, unions oppose this bill precisely because they believe it will put workers' hard-earned pensions at risk. Seriously, you should ask yourself: what does this have to do with cryptocurrency? Why should we blow up stock market protections because a few crypto bros want to?
This bill will give banks the green light to engage in a whole new series of high-risk crypto activities using Americans' bank deposits: lending against cryptocurrency, directly purchasing cryptocurrency, trading crypto derivatives, operating blockchain nodes, selling crypto software—this list goes on and on. Think about how cryptocurrency prices have fluctuated up and down over just the past few years, and imagine what will happen when the largest banks in America use the money in your savings account to hoard that kind of cryptocurrency. The bill also prevents states and tribal nations from enforcing their existing laws to protect their citizens from fraud. The president of the Indian Gaming Association called this bill, "the greatest threat to tribal sovereignty in a generation."
This is not what the American people want. They want Congress to take action on the cost of living crisis. They want an end to Trump's war in Iran. They want elected leaders to step up and regulate artificial intelligence. According to a survey by the crypto news outlet CoinDesk, only 1% of respondents listed cryptocurrency as their top concern. Another poll found that if voters want to do something about cryptocurrency, it is to establish meaningful anti-fraud and anti-corruption measures. And that is precisely what this bill has clearly failed to do.
So you have to ask yourself, why are we here? We need crypto regulation, yes, we need it, but we do not need a bill drafted by the crypto industry that only benefits the most extreme voices in the crypto industry at the expense of our national security and economic stability, and helps the most corrupt president in American history become richer. I urge my Republican colleagues to sit down at the negotiating table and negotiate a truly bipartisan crypto bill. But before that, I urge my colleagues to vote against it. Mr. Chairman, I yield back my time.