House Democrats left a combined meeting of the Agriculture and Financial Services committees, led by Representative Maxine Waters, a Democrat from California. Waters stood up to protest only seconds after Rep. Bryan Steil, R-Wis., the chairman of the Crypto Subcommittee, called the hearing to order.
After being questioned several times, she finally gave the following explanation for her objection: “because of the corruption of the president of the United States and his ownership of crypto and his oversight of all the agencies.”
According to the Hill, Waters and the Democrats opposed to the hearing because they were worried about President Donald Trump’s cryptocurrency endeavours, which include World Liberty Financial and his meme coin. Concerns regarding Trump’s family’s cryptocurrency activities, including his sons’ establishment of a Bitcoin mining business, were also voiced by the lawmaker.
Upon launching the “shadow hearing,” Waters, the ranking member of the Financial Services Committee, charged that Republicans were “legitimising” Trump’s purported “corruption.”
The extraordinary conflicts of interest that President Donald Trump and his family posed were ignored by our Republican colleagues.
The fact that Republicans are not only ignoring Trump’s criminality but are also endorsing his and his family’s attempts to profit off the suffering of regular Americans worries me greatly.
In her introductory remarks, Waters stated, “Trump has transformed the presidency into a personal revenue generator through his cryptocurrency business.” She continued by accusing Trump of eroding democracy.
Waters also attacked Trump for allegedly using taxpayer funds to increase the value of his cryptocurrency by establishing a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve.
Chastity Murphy, a former economic policy advisor to Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich.; Timothy Massad, director of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Digital Assets Policy Project; and Mark Hays, associate director for Cryptocurrency and Financial Technology at Americans for Financial Reform, were among the panellists at the Democrats’ hearing.
The way that Trump and Republicans have handled the cryptocurrency industry has been widely criticised by the three panellists. Nonetheless, they all underlined the necessity of stricter regulation, which was the original joint hearing’s intended objective.
In a statement, Rep. French Hill, R-Ark., the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, addressed Waters’ objection to the hearing.
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“Committee Republicans on Financial Services and the House Committee on Agriculture will continue to work with legislators on both sides of the aisle who are serious about creating a lasting framework that protects Americans, encourages innovation, and brings digital asset leadership back to the U.S.”
A discussion draft of a bill to provide a regulatory framework for digital assets in the United States was made public by the Financial Services Committee on Monday. In order to stop “bad actors” from prospering, the committee wants to establish “clear regulations” for the sector.
“By providing strong safeguards and long-overdue regulatory certainty, the discussion draft advances President Trump’s vision to make the U.S. the ‘crypto capital of the world’ and reinforces America’s leadership in the global financial system,” according to the committee’s one-page.
