{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.blumenthal.senate.gov/newsroom/press/release/blumenthal-delivers-opening-statement-at-public-forum-on-trump-family-corruption", "Blumenthal Delivers Opening Statement at Public Forum on Trump Family Corruption", "2026-09-14", "2026", "2026-09", "Democrat", "Senate", "CT", "Richard Blumenthal", "B001277", "www.blumenthal.senate.gov", "blumenthal", "https://www.blumenthal.senate.gov/newsroom/press", "scraper", "[WASHINGTON, D.C.] \u2013 U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Ranking Member of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI), delivered an opening statement today at a public forum on how Donald Trump, his children, and top Administration officials have leveraged their positions to grow their personal wealth at the expense of American families. At the forum, \u201cGaming the System: How the Trump Family is Making Billions by Ripping Off the American People,\u201d Blumenthal and U.S. Representative Robert Garcia (D-CA), Ranking Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, called out Donald Trump and his family for their self-enrichment schemes and made the case for strong reforms to curb corruption at the federal level.\n\nBlumenthal slammed Republicans for enabling Trump\u2019s corruption by moving to advance crypto market structure legislation without meaningful anti-corruption provisions: \u201cExhibit A, the latest draft of the Clarity Act relating to conflicts of interest. It purports to prevent conflicts of interest and corruption by the President of the United States. It is a charade. It is a sham. It should prompt a no vote by every member of the United States Senate tomorrow at 2:15 when the vote is scheduled.\u201d\n\nBlumenthal continued, \u201cNow, of all the families\u2019 grifts, cryptocurrency has probably been the most profitable enterprise, and the cost to consumers probably have been greatest. This is an industry that was facing criminal and civil investigations for enabling terrorists, drug traffickers, market manipulation, and human trafficking. It turns out the shadiest people were more than willing to cut checks to literally get out of jail. President Trump\u2019s willingness to trade the public trust for crypto wealth began before he was sworn in.\u201d\n\nBlumenthal continued, \u201cSo, this corruption is going to continue unless we take a stand, unless we sound the alarm. And unless the people of the United States tell Republicans corruption is on the ballot this November. Corruption is on the ballot because\u2014here\u2019s the essential point\u2014corruption is costly. Corruption has consequences. I know folks out there are saying themselves, you know, I\u2019m paying more for gasoline and groceries. I can barely afford new clothes for my kids as they go back to school. And you\u2019re making a fuss about Donald Trump making a lot of money. But folks, this is relevant to your lives. This is real in its cost to you.\u201d\n\nBlumenthal underscored the costs to taxpayers and our national security as a result of the Trump family\u2019s self-enrichment schemes: \u201cWhen members of the family like Jared Kushner, who has served as the government\u2019s top negotiator in crises from Gaza to Ukraine, goes out soliciting business for his private equity firm, Affinity Partners, and he goes to the Saudis for $2 billion, or when the country of Qatar provides a plane, or when Melania Trump makes millions of dollars from her vanity project documentary sponsored by Amazon, interests are compromised. Our national interest is compromised.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe grifts just keep on grifting. For some people, Donald Trump is a gift that keeps on giving, but it\u2019s almost entirely to his family and his billionaire friends. And that\u2019s why we\u2019re here today: to say enough is enough. The American people should know what\u2019s happening,\u201d Blumenthal concluded.\n\nA video of Blumenthal\u2019s remarks at the forum is available here. A transcript is available below.\n\nThanks, Representative Garcia, and thank you for your leadership and collaboration. We have conducted a series of hearings on some of the most important issues of the day. And I wish we were on the dais, which hopefully we will be, not long from now. But even here, I just want to tell the witnesses and everybody here there are probably more people watching us through live stream than would be aware of what we\u2019re doing if we were conducting a formal hearing. The reason I regret that we\u2019re not on the dais is this kind of inquiry should be bipartisan. My Republican colleagues should be as offended by what Representative Garcia has just recited as we are. And they should want to hear from these witnesses\u2014really extraordinary experts\u2014as much as we do.\n\nBut instead, instead, they are not only enabling, but they are encouraging this corruption. Exhibit A, the latest draft of the Clarity Act relating to conflicts of interest. It purports to prevent conflicts of interest and corruption by the President of the United States. It is a charade. It is a sham. It should prompt a no vote by every member of the United States senate tomorrow at 2:15 when the vote is scheduled.\n\nThis measure guarantees that the law will never be enforced against President Donald Trump. It would allow him to continue making hundreds of millions of dollars through World Liberty Financial and his meme coin and other crypto ventures. In fact, the bill does not restrict the primary ways that Trump has raked in $1.4 billion last year. And it states loophole number one: Trump can continue making money from existing crypto ventures. The bill states that its issuance and sponsorship restrictions shall only apply to digital assets that are used or sponsored on or after the effective date of the section.\n\nNumber two: Trump could easily restructure any crypto ventures or create new ones to avoid these restrictions. Number three: he can prove it by putting his crypto holdings in a supposedly blind trust. We know how blind that trust would really be. Because he knows what assets are being held there. So, this corruption is going to continue unless we take a stand, unless we sound the alarm. And unless the people of the United States tell Republicans corruption is on the ballot this November. Corruption is on the ballot because\u2014here\u2019s the essential point\u2014corruption is costly. Corruption has consequences.\n\nI know folks out there are saying themselves, you know, I\u2019m paying more for gasoline and groceries. I can barely afford new clothes for my kids as they go back to school. And you\u2019re making a fuss about Donald Trump making a lot of money. But folks, this is relevant to your lives. This is real in its cost to you. And it\u2019s not just crypto. It is also the contracts that are provided to the corporations that his sons have investment in. Donald and Eric, those sole-source contracts, when they are higher in price, mean higher taxes eventually, because these are big contracts, they\u2019re Defense Department commitments in the hundreds of millions or billions of dollars.\n\nPolymarket and Kalshi\u2014the whole prediction market enterprise\u2014when people, in effect bet, and the bets are unfair to them, they lose money. That may sound like an oversimplification, but the fact of the matter is there are real life consequences to corruption. And of course, when members of the family like Jared Kushner, who has served as the government\u2019s top negotiator in crises from Gaza to Ukraine, goes out soliciting business for his private equity firm, Affinity Partners, and he goes to the Saudis for $2 billion or when the country of Qatar provides a plane, or when Melania Trump makes millions of dollars from her vanity project documentary sponsored by Amazon, interests are compromised. Our national interest is compromised.\n\nNow, of all the families\u2019 grifts, cryptocurrency has probably been the most profitable enterprise, and the cost to consumers probably have been greatest. This is an industry that was facing criminal and civil investigations and for enabling terrorists, drug traffickers, market manipulation and human trafficking. It turns out the shadiest people were more than willing to cut checks to literally get out of jail. President Trump\u2019s willingness to trade the public trust for crypto wealth began before he was sworn in. Days before the inauguration, he launched and promoted a meme coin with nothing more than speculative value. It was a pump and dump. The coin started at $1. But when Trump promoted it on Truth Social, it spiked to $73, as you can see here, shortly afterward, insiders sold off their coins. The value crashed. Within weeks, approximately $1 million lost a total of $3.8 billion on their coin investment. As of today, the coin is trading under $2.\n\nSo, corruption has costs, it has consequences. And at one of our hearings very recently, we heard from three of those investors and they told us how they trusted that the President wouldn\u2019t put his name on something that was without value, and they lost nearly everything, President Trump personally made $635 million, as you know, the same kind of story can be told about World Liberty Financial, where Donald Trump\u2019s sons were hastily building up that entity, the primary cryptocurrency venture for the trump family. It has become literally little more than a quid pro quo for foreign interests.\n\nIts major source of funding, an Emirati royal, known as the spy sheikh paid half $1 billion for a 49% stake in the company, and miraculously, they then were rewarded with contracts for AI chips, which had been blocked, and defense equipment, most recently, as Representative Garcia mentioned. In fact, just this morning, ProPublica reported that Don Jr.\u2019s lavish wedding on a private Caribbean island was heavily bankrolled by\u2014never would have guessed it, a Russian oligarch named Umar Kremlev. He happened to have close ties to Vladimir Putin. He\u2019s head of a corrupt organization that oversees world boxing. We have no idea exactly why this Russian oligarch with close ties to Putin decided to spend untold amounts, perhaps in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, to rent an island and pay for a fireworks show at the wedding\u2014but what goes around comes around.\n\nThere\u2019s no free lunch, and I\u2019m often asked the question, what does Putin have on Trump? Why has Vladimir Putin been so persuasive in this apparent bromance with the president of the United States? And if there are other deals like this one, and the wedding may just be the more colorful of them, the answer may be follow the money, because Donald Trump is all about the money, and the costs are not only money to taxpayers, they are a compromise and a degrading of our values, our standing around the world, our self-worth, and our dignity as a nation, and the grifts just keep on grifting. For some people, Donald Trump is a gift that keeps on giving, but it\u2019s almost entirely to his family and his billionaire friends. And that\u2019s why we\u2019re here today: to say enough is enough. The American people should know what\u2019s happening.\n\n-30-", 1, "2026-09-16T09:43:13Z", "2026-09-16T09:44:22Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.blumenthal.senate.gov/newsroom/press/release/blumenthal-delivers-opening-statement-at-public-forum-on-trump-family-corruption"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 2.071618102490902, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}