Senate Sets a January 4 Deadline for Binance, Tether and Trump's Crypto Firms

Two days after Democrats swept the midterms, the top Democrat on the Senate's investigations panel put a hard date on the calendar for four companies tied to President Trump's crypto empire.

A DEADLINE THAT LANDS A DAY AFTER DEMOCRATS TAKE THE SENATE

Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut sent letters dated Thursday, November 5, to Binance, Tether, World Liberty Financial and Fight Fight Fight LLC, the company that launched Trump's TRUMP memecoin. The letters gave the four companies until January 4, 2027, one day into the new Congress, to turn over documents voluntarily. The letters asked the companies to begin turning over records by Nov. 30, with the Jan. 4 deadline falling a day after Democrats are due to take control of the Senate.

Blumenthal wrote that the subcommittee would consider "alternative measures to obtain compliance" if the companies miss the January deadline. The timing is not an accident. Incoming chairs gain subpoena authority, the power to legally compel documents, when the new Congress convenes in January next year, turning a request that could be shrugged off today into one with teeth in a matter of weeks.

EIGHTEEN MONTHS OF ASKING, NOTHING PRODUCED

In letters sent on November 5, Blumenthal stated that none of the four crypto companies furnished any sort of document in 18 months. The specifics differ by company. Blumenthal opened his Binance inquiry in February, after reports that compliance staff had traced $1.7 billion in transfers to Iranian entities through two partners, and in Thursday's letter, Blumenthal said Binance still hadn't turned over any of the requested records.

Tether's thread runs closer to the White House. The Wall Street Journal reported in October that Tether paid roughly $6.3 million to Nxum, a consulting firm co-founded by Bo Hines, with the first payment arriving in May 2025 while Hines was still executive director of the President's Council of Advisers on Digital Assets. Hines now runs Tether US. Blumenthal's letter also renews a request tied to a report his subcommittee's Democratic staff released in September that described Tether's dollar token as embedded in Iran's shadow banking network, a characterization Tether has disputed, saying it helped authorities freeze hundreds of millions in Iran-linked tokens.

The sharpest question for World Liberty Financial involves a reported $500 million purchase of a 49% stake in the company by investors including UAE national security adviser Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan. Fight Fight Fight LLC, which launched the TRUMP memecoin, got its own letter on the same terms over ownership and conflict-of-interest records Blumenthal first sought in May 2025.

TRUMP'S OWN ANSWERS DID NOT HELP

The letters landed three days before Trump sat for his first interview since the midterm wipeout. The 60 Minutes interview was recorded at the White House on Friday, Nov. 6, and published Nov. 8, with correspondent Ross Douthat pressing Trump on his ownership stake in World Liberty Financial and the company's UAE-linked investors.

Asked whether that arrangement amounted to the kind of corruption he would have called out in a Biden administration, Trump's answer was blunt: "Because I know nothing about it." When Douthat asked why he wouldn't simply divest, Trump turned the question back on him: "How do you divest from cash?" He pointed to his family business, saying "My sons run the company," and when Douthat noted that no past president had owned a cryptocurrency company, Trump replied that earlier presidents owned "whatever crypto was at the time," citing oil.

Douthat also cited a Forbes report that Trump's net worth had risen by $3 billion since he returned to office, a figure Trump did not dispute.

THE BALLROOM DONOR LIST COMES BACK INTO VIEW

Blumenthal's November 5 release was not limited to the four crypto firms. He is also leading an inquiry into Big Tech companies and others who may be seeking pay-to-play government favors from their donations to the Trump Ballroom project, and has raised concerns with White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles about the ballooning costs of the renovation. A White House donor list released last year for the ballroom construction named crypto-adjacent firms among the contributors, a list that now sits inside the same investigative lane as the Binance and Tether letters.

For the four companies named this week, the math is simple. They have until the end of November to start producing records and until January 4 to finish, or they will be the first test of what an investigations chairman with subpoena power actually does with it.

This story comes from the Simply Bitcoin Live show. Watch the full episode.