Senate Democrats Demand Hearings on UAE’s Reported $500 Million Stake in Trump Family Crypto Venture

Five Senate Democrats called Tuesday for immediate congressional hearings into a reported $500 million investment by UAE-linked officials in World Liberty Financial, the crypto venture co-founded by President Trump and his family, arguing that a pattern of U.S. policy decisions benefiting the Gulf state in the months that followed raises urgent questions about foreign influence on the presidency.

Senators Elizabeth Warren, Richard Blumenthal, Gary Peters, Richard Durbin, and Ron Wyden asked for sworn testimony on the deal the Wall Street Journal in January reported was signed four days before Trump’s inauguration in a Tuesday letter addressing the chairs of five Senate committees.

This story is an excerpt from the Unchained Daily newsletter.

UAE royal and national security adviser Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan purchased a 49% stake in World Liberty Financial for half a billion dollars, according to the Journal. Tahnoon paid $218 million upfront to entities tied to the Trump family and Steve Witkoff, Trump’s lead diplomat for the Middle East and Russia.

Senate Democrats in Tuesday’s letter described the deal as something unprecedented in U.S. political history: a foreign government official taking a major ownership stake in an incoming president’s company.

The senators said the investment was followed by a series of administration decisions benefiting the UAE. In May 2025, the administration approved $1.4 billion in arms sales to the UAE despite congressional concerns over weapons reaching armed groups in Sudan. The Department of Commerce authorized the transfer of 35,000 advanced Nvidia Blackwell chips — worth roughly a billion dollars — to G42, a UAE AI company also chaired by Tahnoon, despite warnings from U.S. intelligence officials that China could access the technology through the firm.

The senators demanded that administration officials explain under oath what they knew about payments to the president’s family and Witkoff’s family, and how they intend to restore public confidence that the administration is acting in the national interest. Unchained has previously covered earlier Senate calls for investigation into the WLFI-UAE relationship, which drew initial scrutiny after a separate $2 billion MGX investment boosted the market cap of the Trump family’s stablecoin overnight.

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