[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 23 (Monday, February 2, 2026)]
[Senate]
[Pages S435-S436]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                          Trump Administration

  Mr. MURPHY. Madam President, over the course of the last year, 
President Trump has been engaged in just a stunning array of acts to 
enrich himself and his family using government policy, the power of the 
White House to essentially trade away U.S. policy, U.S. national 
security secrets in exchange for investments in Trump himself, making 
himself rich off of being President of the United States.
  I am coming to the floor today because over the weekend, through good 
old-fashioned investigative journalism, we discovered what might be the 
most corrupt act in this administration amidst a dizzying array of 
daily corruption.
  The Wall Street Journal reported over the weekend that 4 days before 
Donald Trump's inauguration, an investment firm closely tied to the 
United Arab Emirates secretly signed a deal with the Trump family to 
purchase a 49-percent stake in a company called World Liberty 
Financial. That is the Trump family's fledgling cryptocurrency venture. 
They run that business in coordination with the Witkoff family--the 
Witkoff family, of course, headed by Steve Witkoff, who is, not 
coincidentally, the President's chief Middle East adviser.
  The company that made the investment that took this 49 percent stake 
is backed by an individual named Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan. 
That is UAE's National Security Advisor. But he is also deeply embedded 
in a number of very important companies that dole out investments from 
the United Arab Emirates.
  One of the companies he is involved in--Tahnoon is involved in--is an 
AI firm called G42. This is all important to understand the scope of 
what we just discovered over the weekend.
  On behalf of his company, G42, Tahnoon has been arguing that the 
United States should sell G42, a UAE company, our most sensitive AI 
chips. We have not sold this hardware to UAE in the past. Both 
Republican and Democratic administrations, both Republican and 
Democratic Members of the Senate, both Republican and Democratic 
Members of the House have said we cannot sell this advanced AI hardware 
to UAE because of the well-known integration of UAE's national security 
service, including this individual, with China.
  So we have never sold these chips to UAE because we were pretty 
sure--and, again, this was a bipartisan consensus. We were pretty sure 
that these chips would just flow straight to China, and China cannot--
cannot--get control of this advanced AI hardware.
  It was shocking to most national security experts, shocking to 
Republicans and Democrats in Congress, when, shortly after the 
President's inauguration, he decided, against the advice of his 
national security advisors, to sell these chips to the UAE and, in 
particular, to this company owned by Sheikh Tahnoon.
  Let me just accentuate the bipartisan nature of the opposition to 
this decision to transfer the technology to the UAE. In 2024, the 
Republican chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee,   Michael 
McCaul, raised the concern and asked for a probe of Microsoft's $1.5 
billion investment into G42. Again, this is Republican Chairman McCaul 
says to the Biden administration: I need you to do an investigation 
into--not the U.S. Government transfer, but Microsoft's investment into 
G42--citing integration between the UAE and China.
  As I noted, it has been reported that this decision to sell these 
chips, valued at $1 billion, was done over the objection of the senior 
national security officials, including the Senior Director for 
Technology at the NSC who argued for restricting access to these 
advanced chips.
  But Trump goes through with the sale, leaving everybody scratching 
their heads. This is really bad for American national security. 
Everybody knows if you give these chips to the UAE, they are going to 
likely find their way into Chinese hands, but he green-lights the sale 
of $1 billion of these advanced chips.
  And this weekend we found out the likely reason: Secretly, days 
before the administration, this UAE company, helmed by the individual 
who stands to benefit by the sale of the chips, makes an investment of 
$500 million secretly in Donald Trump's company World Liberty 
Financial.
  Now, just so you have no illusions, there is no separation between 
Donald Trump, Steve Witkoff, and World Liberty Financial. World Liberty 
Financial is affiliated with a company called DT Marks DEFI LLC, and 
President Trump reportedly owns 70 percent of that company. The rest of 
the 30 percent is believed to be split amongst Trump's sons.
  DT Marks, by the way, is not held by the Trump Organization or any of 
its companies; it is a company owned directly by Donald Trump.
  Steve Witkoff said that he was divesting his stake in this company, 
World Liberty Financial, but in a disclosure that he filed as late as 
September of last year just months ago, he still had a stake, a 
financial interest in that company.
  So Steve Witkoff, the Middle East adviser, Donald Trump, the 
President of the United States, direct owner stakes in World Liberty 
Financial, days before the inauguration, a $500 million payment, a deal 
to pay World Liberty Financial $500 million for a 49-percent stake is 
done in secret.
  Now, we don't know the full extent of that sale, but at the very 
least, $187 million is going directly from this UAE company into the 
Trump family's pockets, at least $31 million is going directly from 
this UAE company into the pocket of the Witkoff family.
  It is not a coincidence that a secret deal is done in which a foreign 
government puts money directly into the hands of the President of the 
United States, secretly, and then very soon

[[Page S436]]

thereafter we find out that the President is throwing out years of 
national security policy. He is discarding the advice of his advisers, 
and he is going to hand that country that just gave him $187 million 
national security secrets.
  Now, of course, this isn't the first time that President Trump has 
done business with this particular individual, because Sheikh Tahnoon 
also runs a company called MGX. MGX put $2 billion worth of investment 
towards the President's business empire earlier in the year.
  Now, this was done in public, so we saw it all for ourselves. But it 
was no less corrupt just because it wasn't discovered by journalists. 
In that deal, this UAE company decided to finance an investment in a 
company called Binance with Donald Trump's cryptocoin. At the time, 
Trump's cryptocoin was a fledgling product in the market. It did not 
have any big backers.
  Guess who comes to the rescue? Sheikh Tahnoon with another one of his 
companies. He finances a $2 billion investment in Binance with Trump's 
cryptocoin, almost overnight making that cryptocoin one of the most 
successful--one of the most highly traded in the industry.
  Now, in that case, the investment wasn't directly by UAE into Donald 
Trump's company. It was financing a venture in Binance with Trump's 
cryptocoin. But just because the corruption was a little bit more 
oblique, doesn't mean that it wasn't corruption.
  In this case--in this case--it is a direct investment by a foreign 
government, a half a billion dollars directly into a company controlled 
and run by the President of the United States.
  There is no record in the history of the United States of a foreign 
government making a direct investment in a company owned by the 
President of the United States. No wonder they did this in secret. No 
wonder they tried to get away with it without anybody knowing.
  The UAE doesn't give this money away for nothing. They were asking 
for these national security secrets. They were asking for this advanced 
chip technology.
  And it is just not a coincidence. You don't have to be born yesterday 
to understand that there is a connection between the payment to Donald 
Trump, the investment in his business, and the transfer of the national 
security secrets.
  I just don't want this to become normal. I just don't want us to 
paper over multimillion-dollar corruption--the President of the United 
States, every single day, profiting off of his position. I don't 
understand why our Republican colleagues excuse this. The White House 
has become a nonstop corruption machine.
  Never, ever before in the history of the country has the President of 
the United States so openly, so brazenly, so consistently worked to use 
the immense power of the Presidency to enrich himself. Never before in 
the history of the Nation has something like this happened in secret: 
The President of the United States taking payments from foreign 
governments, put in his own pockets, and then handing them national 
security favors that the United States had never been willing to do in 
the past.
  You know, back during the Biden administration, there were endless 
hearings. There were nonstop speeches on this floor about the Biden 
crime family. You guys went wild over this, despite not a single 
allegation ever being made of an exchange by President Biden giving 
favorable government treatment in exchange for a personal benefit to 
the President.
  The closest Republicans ever came was that the President's son Hunter 
Biden had been named to the board of an energy company in Ukraine when 
his father worked on Ukraine policy.
  You know how many boards the Trump kids have been named to in the 
last 12 months? You know how many contracts, government contracts, have 
been given to those companies that the Trump kids just got put on the 
boards of magically when their father became President?
  Listen, what Hunter Biden did was wrong. I said it at the time. He 
shouldn't have been on that board. But there was never a single 
allegation that President Biden did anything for that company that his 
son was on the board of or got a single dollar in exchange for his 
son's service on that board--investigations, speeches, hundreds of 
hours on FOX New--not a single allegation.
  Trump enriches himself every single day off his office--every single 
day. Foreign governments buy him things--luxury planes, investments in 
his companies, sweetheart deals, licenses to build hotels--all in 
exchange for favorable treatment from the U.S. Government. It is all 
out there in the open for people to see.
  This was a case in which they knew it was so egregious--it was so 
wrong--that they did it in private. What we are talking about here is 
stunning: a secret payment of at least $187 million to Trump's family; 
a payment of at least $31 million to the family of Trump's top Middle 
East adviser; and then, soon after, a gift of national security secrets 
to the UAE that, up until those two secret payments, every American 
President had refused to give. That is corruption. Those are the 
elements of a bribe. This is potentially criminal conduct.
  The rule of law may be suspended today. Republicans may not be 
willing to do anything about this corruption simply because the 
President is of your party. For now, Trump and his friends may get away 
with these crimes and with this corruption, but the rule of law is 
coming back. And when it does, everyone who has greased their palms off 
government service--trading government favors for cash and violating 
the laws of this Nation--are going to jail.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. MORENO. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.