7 minutes ago
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The White House's crypto adviser, Patrick Witt, defended Wednesday against accusations that President Donald Trump's own crypto ties contributed to last week's defeat of the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, going gloves-off in Washington appearances this week, including an event in which he argued the president's cooperation was unprecedented.
"Democrats made it a political issue," Witt said at the Financial Markets Quality conference hosted at Georgetown University, suggesting that Democratic senators were disingenuous in light of the major housing bill that recently passed without similarly delving into government ethics, despite Trump's status as a real-estate developer. "Why was that bill okay to pass without a stringent, draconian ethics division?"
The Clarity Act negotiations were never able to get over the ethics debate — unrelated to its core market structure provisions — that it needed to address the crypto conflicts of interest of senior government officials. The president was the primary target of that effort, and at a couple of recent points in the legislative talks, he'd agreed to concessions that would have saddled him with some crypto limits.
"The president agreed to not one but two different ethics provisions that were unprecedented in nature," Witt said. Apart from an eventual willingness to submit to rules that would have forced Trump to divest crypto interests or place them in a blind trust, the White House was also ready to concede to letting state attorneys general pursue the federal government if it failed to police ethical lapses, he said.
"That is without a doubt the most unprecedented, far-reaching, stringent, restrictive ethics provision that has ever been agreed to by any president," Witt said.
He said the Democrats accusing Trump of an improper conflict for steering digital assets policy while controlling a crypto empire is "somewhat ironic, given that we're dealing with a lot of senators on banking committees who hold stocks and actively trade stocks in financial services companies that they regulate."
Witt's primary role was to get the Clarity Act into law — a prospect that took a major hit last week when the U.S. Senate failed to advance the bill. He suggested at a CoinDesk Policy & Regulation event on Tuesday that the so-called lame duck congressional session at the end of the year is not a significant focus, saying the core work now is shifting to the federal regulators, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission.
At both events, he also accused banking lobbyists of helping tank the bill over the competitive concerns that stablecoin rewards would compete with interest-bearing bank deposits.
"It was a wildfire that was started by larger banks that ultimately spread to community banks, and they sold them a line," Witt said of the new protections from the rise of stablecoins that bankers insisted should appear in Clarity. "So if that really is an existential threat to the community banking system, then I would expect them to be back on Capitol Hill demanding passage."
Instead, he said they're "beating their chests" at having defeated the bill, which "tells you I think everything you need to know about the sincerity of the argument."
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The Definitive Stablecoin Landscape Series: Asia Pacific
The Definitive Stablecoin Landscape Series: Asia Pacific
As stablecoins move into regulated finance, APAC is becoming a key proving ground. This report maps the region’s rules, use cases, and RLUSD’s role.
Sep 15, 2026
As stablecoins move into regulated finance, APAC is becoming a key proving ground. This report maps the region’s rules, use cases, and RLUSD’s role.
Why it matters:
As stablecoins move into regulated finance, APAC is becoming a key proving ground. This report maps the region’s rules, use cases, and RLUSD’s role.