White House Agrees to Clarity Act Ethics Language Covering Trump, Moving the Crypto Bill Toward a Senate Vote

The White House has agreed to an ethics provision covering President Trump, with the DOJ set to enforce it, potentially clearing the last major obstacle to a Senate vote on the CLARITY Act.

The White House has agreed to an ethics package for the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act and sent the language to certain Senate Republicans on Monday afternoon, according to Crypto in America’s Eleanor Terrett. The development could clear the way for long-awaited updated bill text and, with it, a Senate floor vote on what would be the first comprehensive US crypto law.

The White House reached the agreement Monday with Republican Sens. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming and Bernie Moreno of Ohio, and that the provision covers President Trump himself, Punchbowl News reported. Moreno told reporters Monday night that the ethics rules would be enforced by the Justice Department rather than state attorneys general, according to Punchbowl News.

This story is an excerpt from the Unchained Daily newsletter.

A tentative deal collapsed last month after Republicans and the White House withdrew a provision that would have let state attorneys general sue the DOJ over failures to enforce ethics rules, an arrangement Democrats saw as essential given that the department answers to the president. Routing enforcement back through the DOJ eases Republican concerns but may not satisfy the Democrats whose votes decide the bill’s fate.

Clarity needs 60 votes to clear a filibuster, requiring at least a handful of Democrats. Only two, Sens. Ruben Gallego of Arizona and Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland, voted the bill out of the Senate Banking Committee, and both have conditioned their floor votes on strong conflict-of-interest language. Gallego last week told Politico that Republicans were bringing Trump “their ethics provisions, not with anything that we agree to as Democrats,” warning the bill would not get Democratic votes.

The fight centers on Trump’s crypto wealth. His financial disclosure released last month showed his family earned more than $1.4 billion from crypto last year, including memecoin royalties and income from World Liberty Financial.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune has said he wants a Clarity Act floor vote before the August recess. After the recess, attention is expected to shift to the November midterms, leaving the bill only a few weeks of runway this year. If it manages to scale the Senate, it would still have to be sent to the House and Trump before it can become law.

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