# The Trump Insiders Who Shaped Crypto Law

An episode of [Big Take](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1578096201), 22 Jul 2026, 20 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/tracking.swap.fm/track/UVBrz8bN8aM2Xe47PEPu/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/825d4e29-b616-46f4-afd7-ae2b0013005c/01ed200d-d9bc-433b-94e9-b48f014ee4f7/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=8b1dd624-a026-43e9-8b57-ae2b00130066

How did Tether — the largest stablecoin issuer in the world — go from fighting stablecoin regulation to supporting the Genius Act? That’s the subject of a new Bloomberg News investigation into how Trump insiders helped to loosen safeguards and shape the process that led to the law in ways that benefitted the company. On today’s Big Take podcast, Bloomberg’s Anthony Cormier and David Kocieniewski detail their reporting for host Sarah Holder, including how US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, according to court filings, ‘managed to kill’ less favorable legislation before taking office, and how former White House aide Bo Hines defended a provision Tether wanted – before going to work for the company. Read more: How Tether Benefited as Trump Insiders Shaped First US Crypto Law Further listening: Meet Tether, The Most Powerful Crypto Firm You’ve Never Heard Of We have a special Bloomberg subscription offer for podcast listeners at Bloomberg.com/podcastoffer. Hosted by Sarah Holder; Produced by David Fox; Reported by Anthony Cormier, David Kocieniewski and Annie Massa; Edited by Aaron Edwards, Tracey Samuelson. Fact-checking by Rachael Lewis-Krisky; Engineering by Emma Munger, Alex Sugiura. Senior Producer: Naomi Shavin; Deputy Executive Producer: Julia Weaver. Executive Producer: Nicole Beemsterboer. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:02] Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
[0:10] Speaker 2: With today's signing, we're pushing even further into the exciting
[0:13] Speaker 2: new frontier this time.
[0:15] Speaker 3: Last year, President Trump signed the Genius Act, the first
[0:19] Speaker 3: federal cryptocurrency regulation in the US.
[0:22] Speaker 2: This could be perhaps the greatest revolution in financial technology
[0:26] Speaker 2: since the birth of the Internet. Is so a lot
[0:29] Speaker 2: of people.
[0:29] Speaker 3: The legislation created new regulations on stable coins, a type
[0:34] Speaker 3: of cryptocurrency backed by commodities like gold or more often,
[0:38] Speaker 3: fiat currencies like the US dollar. That backing is designed
[0:43] Speaker 3: to ensure stable coins maintain a steady, stable value, unlike
[0:48] Speaker 3: other cryptocurrencies. Another feature, users can send their money across
[0:53] Speaker 3: borders without having to deal with the fees, regulation, and
[0:56] Speaker 3: scrutiny of banks. That's made stable coins popular with all
[1:00] Speaker 3: kinds of people, including criminals, terrorists, and sanctions of vaders,
[1:05] Speaker 3: a problem the Genius Act sought to address. But the
[1:09] Speaker 3: idea of regulation set off alarm bells within the stable
[1:12] Speaker 3: coin industry, including at Tether.
[1:16] Speaker 1: Tether's the most dominant force in stable coins and one
[1:20] Speaker 1: of the biggest overall crypto companies in the world. We
[1:24] Speaker 1: tracked and we would think that they control about sixty
[1:26] Speaker 1: percent of the stable coin market.
[1:28] Speaker 3: That's Bloomberg Senior investigative reporter Anthony Cormier. Tether's main product
[1:33] Speaker 3: is a stable coin called USDT that's pegged to the
[1:37] Speaker 3: US dollar. There's currently more than one hundred and eighty
[1:40] Speaker 3: billion dollars worth in circulation, and for every USDT out there,
[1:45] Speaker 3: Tether is supposed to hold one US dollar in reserve.
[1:49] Speaker 3: It can invest those dollars and hang on to the profits,
[1:53] Speaker 3: and that simple idea has turned Tether into a giant.
[1:57] Speaker 1: They grow year by year. They're exponentially larger than their
[2:02] Speaker 1: nearest competitor.
[2:03] Speaker 3: But when lawmakers started calling for more oversight of stable coins,
[2:07] Speaker 3: the company was concerned that US regulation could threaten that
[2:11] Speaker 3: growth or worse.
[2:12] Speaker 4: Tyler's CEO said he thought that the US could like
[2:15] Speaker 4: flick a switch and shut them down.
[2:17] Speaker 3: Bloomberg Senior investigative reporter David Kochinewski.
[2:20] Speaker 4: There was pressure from US lawmakers and US law enforcement
[2:24] Speaker 4: to see whether they were doing enough due diligence and
[2:27] Speaker 4: enough anti money laundering. Was kind of an existential moment.
[2:30] Speaker 3: For them, But in the end, the version of the
[2:32] Speaker 3: Genius Act that Congress passed last summer contained provisions that
[2:36] Speaker 3: benefited Tether.
[2:37] Speaker 2: I also want to recognize some of the countless industry
[2:41] Speaker 2: leaders here today, including Brian Armstrong of Coinbase.
[2:45] Speaker 3: In fact, Tether's CEO, Paolo Arduino even attended the bills.
[2:49] Speaker 2: Signing pallo Ardino of Tether.
[2:56] Speaker 3: So how did Tether go from fearing stable coin regulation
[3:00] Speaker 3: to supporting the Genius Act. A new Bloomberg News investigation
[3:04] Speaker 3: reveals the story behind that shift.
[3:07] Speaker 1: We found that two of the president's key advisors, Commerce
[3:12] Speaker 1: Secretory Howard Lutnik and cryptoadvisor Bell Hinz, were influential in
[3:18] Speaker 1: shaping the way that bill turned out, both before and
[3:22] Speaker 1: after Trump took.
[3:23] Speaker 3: Cofts, and both of those men ended up having close
[3:27] Speaker 3: ties not only to Trump, but to Tether. I'm Sarah Holder,
[3:35] Speaker 3: and this is the big take from Bloomberg News today
[3:38] Speaker 3: on the show, the inside story behind the Genius Act
[3:42] Speaker 3: and how Trump administration officials who wound up with close
[3:45] Speaker 3: financial ties to Tether helped shape crypto regulation to the
[3:49] Speaker 3: company's benefit. Way back in twenty twenty one, long before
[3:58] Speaker 3: there was a Genius Act, Tether was a hugely profitable
[4:01] Speaker 3: company with an image problem. That year, federal regulators and
[4:07] Speaker 3: New York State brought claims against Tether and a related
[4:10] Speaker 3: crypto exchange, alleging that Tether had misled investors about their reserves.
[4:15] Speaker 3: Tether and the exchange ended up paying more than sixty
[4:18] Speaker 3: million dollars to settle those claims. Tether never acknowledged any
[4:23] Speaker 3: wrongdoing in the settlements, but questions about the company's assets persisted,
[4:28] Speaker 3: so the company enlisted Canter Fitzgerald, a New York financial firm,
[4:32] Speaker 3: to manage the company's reserves. At the time, Howard Lutnick
[4:37] Speaker 3: was Canter Fitzgerald CEO.
[4:39] Speaker 1: Howard Lutnink is a longtime financier. He took over and
[4:45] Speaker 1: was in charge of the firm during nine to eleven
[4:47] Speaker 1: when his office building was in the World Trade Center
[4:50] Speaker 1: and they lost scores of employees. They are a very big,
[4:56] Speaker 1: but not tremendously sized financial institution. But what they offered
[5:00] Speaker 1: to Tether was the ability to buy treasury bonds, which
[5:04] Speaker 1: is one of the core ways you can back up
[5:06] Speaker 1: or reserve your stable coins. Those are very liquid, you
[5:09] Speaker 1: can trade them very easily. It's essentially like having cash.
[5:14] Speaker 3: In January twenty twenty four, Lutnik vouched for Tether's reserves
[5:18] Speaker 3: on Bloomberg TV.
[5:19] Speaker 1: There's always been a lot of talk do they have
[5:21] Speaker 1: it or not? Some with you guys saying we've seen
[5:25] Speaker 1: it and they have it.
[5:26] Speaker 3: What do we know now about the deal that Canter
[5:28] Speaker 3: Fitzgerald and Tether struck shortly after Lundik made these comments?
[5:33] Speaker 1: Right, So, a few months later, Canter Fitzgerald go from
[5:36] Speaker 1: out beholder of their reserves, manager of their money essentially
[5:41] Speaker 1: to a potential owner in Tether strike a deal whereby
[5:45] Speaker 1: Canter Fitzgerald would pay six hundred million dollars for a
[5:49] Speaker 1: convertible bond which would offer them the right to take
[5:52] Speaker 1: five percent of Tether and our back of the envelope
[5:56] Speaker 1: math A conservative estimate of that is that that deal
[6:01] Speaker 1: was worth Canterfifzgerald played six hundred million dollars for something
[6:04] Speaker 1: that is at that time worth six billion, and according
[6:08] Speaker 1: to associates who spoke to Tether's folks, that was quote
[6:11] Speaker 1: bloody cheap.
[6:12] Speaker 3: So this deal brings Canter Fitzgerald and Tether's financial interests
[6:15] Speaker 3: even closer together. Right Meanwhile, efforts are mounting on Capitol
[6:20] Speaker 3: Hill to push back on Tether. What were lawmaker's concerns
[6:24] Speaker 3: during this period between twenty twenty three and twenty twenty four,
[6:28] Speaker 3: again before Trump takes office the second time, and who
[6:30] Speaker 3: was voicing those concerns.
[6:33] Speaker 1: A great number of federal law enforcement officials and lawmakers
[6:37] Speaker 1: on both sides of the aisle were expressing persistent concerns
[6:41] Speaker 1: with Tether's ability to stop terror financing, money lawn during
[6:46] Speaker 1: narco trafficking, things of this nature. What happens in twenty
[6:50] Speaker 1: twenty four is that two lawmakers, Senator Cynthia Lennis and
[6:54] Speaker 1: Kirsten Gillibrand, propose a bill, along with their counterparts in
[6:59] Speaker 1: the House, that would have begun to set ground rules
[7:03] Speaker 1: for the way stable coins can be traded and companies
[7:07] Speaker 1: have to post their reserves.
[7:09] Speaker 3: So the heat on Tether was rising at this point.
[7:11] Speaker 3: They were facing the risk for them of Congress passing
[7:16] Speaker 3: bills that would further regulate them. This is also around
[7:20] Speaker 3: the time of Trump's campaign for a second term and
[7:22] Speaker 3: his push for the US to be the crypto capital
[7:25] Speaker 3: of the world. I want to ask about Howard Lutnick
[7:29] Speaker 3: at this point, what is Lutnick's relationship to Trump and
[7:32] Speaker 3: his campaign.
[7:34] Speaker 4: You know, he had been a supporter, but it really
[7:37] Speaker 4: kind of crystallized at the Bitcoin conference in Nashville that year,
[7:40] Speaker 4: Howard gave the keynote speech, spent most of the time
[7:44] Speaker 4: talking about Tether, how they had the money they say
[7:46] Speaker 4: they have that, you know. He said that people had
[7:49] Speaker 4: complained that Tether was working with Jihad, and then he
[7:52] Speaker 4: invoked the memory of the six hundred employees he lost
[7:55] Speaker 4: at Canter Fitzgerald and his own brother and best friend
[7:58] Speaker 4: who died, and he said, you know, I love these people.
[8:01] Speaker 4: At nine to eleven, I would never do business with
[8:04] Speaker 4: anyone who had anything to do with Jihad, and the
[8:07] Speaker 4: very thought of it disgusts me.
[8:08] Speaker 3: Going to batfor Tether once again.
[8:10] Speaker 4: Yes, that conference was kind of a big moment for Trump,
[8:13] Speaker 4: who had been a crypto skeptic during his first term.
[8:16] Speaker 4: He said it was a scam, but they raised I
[8:18] Speaker 4: think twenty five million dollars at that bitcoin conference for
[8:23] Speaker 4: his campaign. Howard, after the speech, talks to Trump. He's
[8:27] Speaker 4: invited to get on the campaign plane with him. On
[8:29] Speaker 4: the campaign plane, Trump asked him to be the co
[8:33] Speaker 4: head of his transition team. So he is now part
[8:36] Speaker 4: of the inner circle. And from that point he had
[8:38] Speaker 4: a very close relationship with the campaign, the transition and
[8:43] Speaker 4: ultimately shaping the administration.
[8:46] Speaker 3: In September of twenty twenty four, Lutnick met with one
[8:49] Speaker 3: of the senators pushing crypto regulation, Senator Lummis. A spokesperson
[8:54] Speaker 3: for Senator Lummis said Lutnick never urged her to back
[8:57] Speaker 3: off support for her bill or pressured her in a
[9:00] Speaker 3: manner to make changes. Court filings related to a case
[9:04] Speaker 3: brought against Tether by a bitcoin entrepreneur who had a
[9:06] Speaker 3: failed partnership with the company raised other questions about Lutnick's
[9:10] Speaker 3: actions during this period. The filing contains what the entrepreneur
[9:14] Speaker 3: describes as his contemporaneous notes of his conversations with Tether's chairman,
[9:19] Speaker 3: including one that says the chairman told him, quote according
[9:23] Speaker 3: to Howard, he managed to kill every bill about stable
[9:27] Speaker 3: coin's crypto, etc. Unquote. By the end of the year,
[9:31] Speaker 3: the stable coin legislation had gone nowhere. A spokesperson for
[9:35] Speaker 3: the Commerce Department did not answer detailed questions about Bloomberg's reporting,
[9:39] Speaker 3: but said Lutnick complied with the terms of the Federal
[9:42] Speaker 3: Ethics Agreement required of Cabinet appointees and divested from his holdings,
[9:47] Speaker 3: including Tether. There's a moment I want to unpack. A
[9:50] Speaker 3: few months later, so Trump wins the twenty twenty four
[9:54] Speaker 3: US presidential election, Lutnick is made Commerce Secretary. So Tether
[9:59] Speaker 3: has this powerful ally in the cabinet. What's the next
[10:05] Speaker 3: big business deal between Tether and the Trump universe.
[10:09] Speaker 1: Before he takes office? After Trump is elected, but before
[10:12] Speaker 1: he's inaugurated. Canterfitz Cheryl, including Howard Ludnik, the negotiated deal
[10:17] Speaker 1: in which Tether is going to invest seven hundred and
[10:20] Speaker 1: seventy five million dollars in a money losing video production
[10:25] Speaker 1: company called Rumble. And what we know is that Rumble
[10:29] Speaker 1: partners with Truth Social and it also counts as investors
[10:33] Speaker 1: some pretty significant figures in the Trump administration, including in
[10:36] Speaker 1: the past Jade Vance. So Tether partners, Tether invests in
[10:42] Speaker 1: a money losing venture that is tight with the Trump administration.
[10:47] Speaker 3: Why does that matter?
[10:48] Speaker 4: Well, part of it is a it made the stock
[10:50] Speaker 4: go up right away. And second of all is that
[10:52] Speaker 4: out of the seminar and seventy five million, they allowed
[10:54] Speaker 4: them to use five hundred and twenty five million for
[10:56] Speaker 4: share buybacks even though the company was losing money.
[10:59] Speaker 3: Almost seventy percent of Tether's investment went to share buybacks
[11:02] Speaker 3: from certain members of key management.
[11:05] Speaker 4: So immediately, you know, they had the access to kind
[11:07] Speaker 4: of cash out at a very favorable price.
[11:09] Speaker 3: How does Tether explain why they would invest in this
[11:12] Speaker 3: money losing company.
[11:14] Speaker 4: They said that they had a freedom agenda that Meta
[11:17] Speaker 4: and other platforms early on were blocking people for hate
[11:20] Speaker 4: speech or for things that were untrue, and so they said,
[11:23] Speaker 4: Rumble's going to allow people to speak their minds, and
[11:25] Speaker 4: Tether said, we agree with that, and they also said
[11:28] Speaker 4: they might want to use them as a platform for
[11:30] Speaker 4: other cryptodials and for using Tether as a currency. Tether
[11:34] Speaker 4: as well has said that acted only lawfully and properly,
[11:37] Speaker 4: and during twenty twenty five they didn't say this sa Us,
[11:39] Speaker 4: but the New York Times they said that they were
[11:41] Speaker 4: careful to not have any contact with Howard once he
[11:44] Speaker 4: became Commerce Secretary because that would have been improper.
[11:52] Speaker 3: After the break enter the Genius Act. When the Genius
[12:09] Speaker 3: Act was finally passed in twenty twenty five, Bloomberg's Anthony
[12:12] Speaker 3: Cormier and David Kochenewski say it was a lot more
[12:16] Speaker 3: crypto friendly than Congress's first attempts at regulating the stable
[12:20] Speaker 3: coin industry.
[12:21] Speaker 1: Past versions of this could have forced companies like Tether
[12:25] Speaker 1: who were based offshore to come into the United States
[12:28] Speaker 1: and submit to our sort of regulatory regime. But the
[12:32] Speaker 1: new bill, the Genius Act, does not have that sort
[12:34] Speaker 1: of restriction. It offers what critics would call a reciprocity loophole,
[12:40] Speaker 1: whereby the Treasury Secretary can determine that a foreign country
[12:44] Speaker 1: has a comparable regulatory apparatus, that is the United States.
[12:48] Speaker 3: Like El Salvador where Teather is based.
[12:50] Speaker 1: Like El Salvador, so rather than submitting to the authority
[12:54] Speaker 1: of the US in the case of Tether, they could
[12:57] Speaker 1: submit to the authority of El Salvador, which is very
[13:00] Speaker 1: crypto friendly country.
[13:02] Speaker 4: There's two other areas where it helped Tether. One was
[13:05] Speaker 4: the DeFi protocols. You know, one of the ways that
[13:08] Speaker 4: crypto ends up being used for nefarious purposes. It's sold
[13:11] Speaker 4: on a secondary market, and so Tether will sell to
[13:14] Speaker 4: like forty or fifty different exchanges. You know, they kind
[13:17] Speaker 4: of do all kind of vetting and due diligence on them.
[13:19] Speaker 4: But then it can be sold on the open market,
[13:22] Speaker 4: and it can be sold on some exchanges that will
[13:24] Speaker 4: allow people to have totally anonymous wallets. That's called DeFi,
[13:28] Speaker 4: and there were some attempts early on to make very
[13:31] Speaker 4: tight restrictions that would forced the issuer to kind of
[13:33] Speaker 4: see downstream and make sure that the DeFi sales weren't
[13:37] Speaker 4: going to be to illicit places. Tether and a few
[13:40] Speaker 4: others also pushed against that because that would have put
[13:43] Speaker 4: a lot of responsibility on them.
[13:45] Speaker 3: Another big win for Tether was the timeline how long
[13:49] Speaker 3: crypto companies had to come into compliance with the Genius Act.
[13:52] Speaker 1: This is a big deal. Our reporting shows to Tether
[13:55] Speaker 1: that they wanted that grace period, so to speak, to
[13:58] Speaker 1: be as long as possible. There are a series of
[14:00] Speaker 1: meetings very late in the game, and that's where one
[14:04] Speaker 1: of the White House officials that were reporting on really
[14:07] Speaker 1: sort of stepped in and took actions that were beneficial
[14:11] Speaker 1: to Tether.
[14:13] Speaker 3: That official was bo Heinz, head of the White House
[14:17] Speaker 3: Presidential Council of Advisors for Digital Assets.
[14:20] Speaker 4: He is not really a crypto person. Bow's first introduction
[14:23] Speaker 4: to the crypto world was he played in the Bitcoin
[14:26] Speaker 4: Bowl as a college football player. When he was named
[14:29] Speaker 4: as a president's advisor, people are all surprised because they
[14:32] Speaker 4: thought it'd be someone who was deeply involved in it,
[14:35] Speaker 4: and then people who negotiate with them said there were
[14:37] Speaker 4: things about bitcoin that they had to explain to him.
[14:40] Speaker 1: So what Bohinz lacked in experience or crypto expertise he
[14:45] Speaker 1: made up for in a couple of things that Trump loves.
[14:49] Speaker 1: He is very tall, very muscular, He is a very
[14:52] Speaker 1: camera ready jawline, and he is a died in the
[14:56] Speaker 1: wool maga guy is on the record saying that Trump
[15:01] Speaker 1: won the twenty twenty election.
[15:03] Speaker 3: Also, during the fall of twenty twenty four, a business
[15:07] Speaker 3: Hines operated with his father donated a million dollars in
[15:10] Speaker 3: billboard advertising to a political action committee supporting Trump's campaign.
[15:15] Speaker 1: He's elevated pretty quickly. It's a very very important position.
[15:19] Speaker 1: And the thing that he takes on his remit is
[15:23] Speaker 1: getting the genius act across the line. And like bo
[15:27] Speaker 1: said publicly, in order to get it across the line,
[15:29] Speaker 1: he acted as literally quote the.
[15:32] Speaker 3: Bully, and what is being the bully entail? What did
[15:35] Speaker 3: he do?
[15:35] Speaker 1: I think at critical moments in these negotiations when they
[15:39] Speaker 1: reached impasses, our reporting shows that he often invoked the
[15:43] Speaker 1: name of the White House, the President himself to get
[15:46] Speaker 1: these things over the line.
[15:48] Speaker 3: So Bohines, as the head of the White House Crypto Council,
[15:52] Speaker 3: pushed hard to pass this bill that in its final
[15:55] Speaker 3: form contained provisions that Teather wanted. As you said, then
[15:58] Speaker 3: after the Genius Act became Hum's law, how long does
[16:02] Speaker 3: Bohinz stay in the Trump administration?
[16:05] Speaker 4: He said, a few weeks after the ER's Act was signed,
[16:07] Speaker 4: and then within a few weeks after that, he was
[16:10] Speaker 4: hired by Tether for an executive job. We've asked, but
[16:15] Speaker 4: have not been told what the compensation is.
[16:17] Speaker 3: So Bohines went from working on crypto regulation legislation to
[16:23] Speaker 3: working for a crypto company.
[16:26] Speaker 4: Yes, the revolving door revolved very quickly in that case.
[16:28] Speaker 1: I think you can go beyond that. Our reporting shows
[16:30] Speaker 1: that he advocated internally for measures that ultimately benefited Tether,
[16:36] Speaker 1: and then within a month after leaving the White House,
[16:39] Speaker 1: he took a job with Tether. There's no prohibition on
[16:43] Speaker 1: anyone from taking that kind of job. But again, Teather
[16:46] Speaker 1: says that all of this was proper, none of it
[16:49] Speaker 1: was inappropriate.
[16:50] Speaker 3: And Hines has not responded to detailed requests for comment.
[16:54] Speaker 3: As for Lutnik, a spokesperson for the Commerce Department said
[16:57] Speaker 3: Lutnik quote was not involved in any mans relating to
[17:00] Speaker 3: the Genius Act stable coin provisions. How does Tether explain
[17:05] Speaker 3: their close ties with Lutnek hines the Trump administration and
[17:10] Speaker 3: their view of how the Genius Act ended up containing
[17:13] Speaker 3: these provisions that were favorable towards them.
[17:16] Speaker 1: Well, look, I mean, they're a dominant player in the
[17:20] Speaker 1: cryptocurrency business, and as they've said to us and to
[17:24] Speaker 1: their credit, any market participant has a right to lobby
[17:28] Speaker 1: for its own interests. Tether says that all of this
[17:32] Speaker 1: was done above board, there's nothing improper. That they have
[17:35] Speaker 1: regular contacts with law enforcement agencies, lawmakers, regulators. To their credit,
[17:42] Speaker 1: they have been cited very favorably lately by law enforcement
[17:47] Speaker 1: officials for cooperating and shutting down anti money laundering or
[17:50] Speaker 1: narco trafficking terror financing cases. They've drawn a lot of
[17:55] Speaker 1: praise in that space that I think he deserves some
[18:00] Speaker 1: credit for.
[18:01] Speaker 4: That being said, they also continue to be widely used
[18:05] Speaker 4: by sanctions of aaders. I mean, in twenty twenty five,
[18:07] Speaker 4: the year that the Genius Act was being negotiated and enacted,
[18:11] Speaker 4: there was a transaction where half a billion dollars in
[18:15] Speaker 4: Tether were purchased by the Central Bank of Iran at
[18:20] Speaker 4: a time when Iran was sanctioned.
[18:23] Speaker 3: Three months after the Genius Act was signed, Lutnik sold
[18:26] Speaker 3: his multi billion dollar ownership interest in Canter Fitzgerald to
[18:30] Speaker 3: trusts benefiting his children to comply with federal ethics rules
[18:34] Speaker 3: meant to curb conflicts of interest, and Bloomberg found that
[18:38] Speaker 3: the day after the sale was closed, a document was
[18:42] Speaker 3: filed in New York that showed Tether had loaned one
[18:45] Speaker 3: of those trusts in undisclosed sum of money. Lutnik has
[18:50] Speaker 3: declined to reveal what his children paid for his holdings
[18:53] Speaker 3: or whether the loan that their trust received from Tether
[18:56] Speaker 3: was used to finance the transaction.
[18:58] Speaker 1: And that loan is now raising a lot of questions
[19:01] Speaker 1: in Congress. We don't know. We can't say for certain
[19:03] Speaker 1: that it was used to close the deal, but lawmakers
[19:07] Speaker 1: very recently issued a letter based on our reporting saying
[19:10] Speaker 1: what's the deal here?
[19:11] Speaker 4: They said that we want to question you, but to
[19:13] Speaker 4: see whether this was an attempt to influence or bribe you,
[19:17] Speaker 4: is what the questions were. And by this point, because
[19:19] Speaker 4: the Genius Hack had already been enacted and Tether has
[19:22] Speaker 4: now got far more ability to make money and to
[19:26] Speaker 4: expand its market share. The stake in Tether that was
[19:30] Speaker 4: worth six billion when Counterbritrial had bought it in twenty
[19:33] Speaker 4: twenty four might have been worth as much as twenty
[19:36] Speaker 4: five billion.
[19:44] Speaker 3: This is the Big Take from Bloomberg News. I'm Sarah Holder.
[19:48] Speaker 3: To get more from The Big Take and unlimited access
[19:50] Speaker 3: to all of Bloomberg dot com, subscribe today at Bloomberg
[19:54] Speaker 3: dot com slash podcast Offer. If you liked this episode,
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[20:04] Speaker 3: Thanks for listening. We'll be back tomorrow

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