A Trump White House official is directly negotiating an ethics compromise on the CLARITY Act with Senate Democrats, resolving the last major hurdle before the crypto market structure bill can reach a Senate floor vote. The talks, reported by journalist Pete Rizzo citing Politico, involve the White House Crypto Council's executive director Patrick Witt alongside Senate Republicans and Democrats. The dispute centers on how the bill would restrict senior government officials, including President Donald Trump, from holding crypto interests.
The Ethics Impasse
The ethics provision has been the toughest remaining negotiation on the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act. Senate Democrats including Ruben Gallego and Kirsten Gillibrand have held close talks with Republican counterparts and the White House over language limiting officials' crypto ties. The president's own holdings complicate matters: Trump and his family have generated an estimated $2.3 billion from crypto ventures since he returned to office, according to Reuters as cited by Crypto in America. Those interests span a stake in World Liberty Financial, Truth Social's crypto ties, and his namesake memecoin.
Witt has said his office wanted the limits to cover a wide swath of government officials rather than target the president directly, a framing Democrats have resisted. Earlier talks produced a tentative agreement before the Senate Banking Committee advanced the bill in May, but key pieces were later pulled back. A provision allowing state attorneys general to sue the Department of Justice over enforcement failures was dropped by Republicans and the White House. Republicans countered by offering to limit enforcement to the Attorney General and floated impeachment as an alternative, but Democrats rejected these as a reversal of the earlier deal.
Progress and Path Forward
Senator Cynthia Lummis, a Republican negotiator, said the US is finally close to getting digital asset legislation right. "Software developers should not need an army of lawyers to know if their code is legal," she wrote on X. "The Clarity Act ends that absurdity." The Senate Banking Committee advanced an amended version of the bill in a bipartisan vote in May, after the House passed its own version by a wide bipartisan margin in July 2025. The Senate placed the measure on its legislative calendar on June 1, making it eligible for full floor consideration.
Ethics is one of two top hurdles, alongside law enforcement concerns over the bill's developer-liability shield. Crypto lobbyists are pushing for a July floor vote, leaving a narrow window before the Senate's August recess, which many view as the unofficial deadline. Seven Democratic votes are needed to clear a 60-vote threshold. Analysts warn that the Senate likely needs to pass the bill before August for it to become law this year, with odds narrowing sharply if lawmakers miss that deadline ahead of the midterm elections.